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

BUT measuring all that at the end is BY THE EARS/BRAIN not by Tools working linearly in the time independant domain...

@mahgister 

Sure.  Make sure you conduct such listening tests with rigor and report back.  Don't tell me you like the story from the guy who designed something.  That is putting your trust in the hands of the wrong person.

Here is a story for you.  Read what happened when Dr. Olive arrived at Harman:

http://seanolive.blogspot.com/2009/04/dishonesty-of-sighted-audio-product.html

"

A Blind Versus Sighted Loudspeaker Experiment

This question was tested in 1994, shortly after I joined Harman International as Manager of Subjective Evaluation [1]. My mission was to introduce formalized, double-blind product testing at Harman. To my surprise, this mandate met rather strong opposition from some of the more entrenched marketing, sales and engineering staff who felt that, as trained audio professionals, they were immune from the influence of sighted biases.

[...]

The mean loudspeaker ratings and 95% confidence intervals are plotted in Figure 1 for both sighted and blind tests. The sighted tests produced a significant increase in preference ratings for the larger, more expensive loudspeakers G and D. (note: G and D were identical loudspeakers except with different cross-overs, voiced ostensibly for differences in German and Northern European tastes, respectively. The negligible perceptual differences between loudspeakers G and D found in this test resulted in the creation of a single loudspeaker SKU for all of Europe, and the demise of an engineer who specialized in the lost art of German speaker voicing).

So be very careful in believing what a designer claims.

And once more, listening tests are wonderful.  Demand that your supplier show such controlled listening tests.  If they don't have one, clearly they are not valuing listening as you say.  Instead they want you to be believe written words with no verification.  Caveat Emptor!!! 

 

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ghasley

 

@maxwellseq Just curious what point you are trying to make.

I wasn't trying to make a point. Someone quoted me from a different thread - about S/PDIF - in this thread, and I clarified. It was off-topic; I should have not responded.

 

Nope.

But he has confirmed that audiophile may tend to evangelize their personal subjective v. objective frame of reference. Measurements are helpful, but rooms, room treatment (or not), equipment, cables (an endless discussion of)... are important. Each audiophile "hears" what he/she likes and at some point, isn't that the issue? Which is why I love Hans Beekhuyzen's sign-off comment on every YouTube, "...and whatever you do, enjoy the music." Too often, I've found myself deep into these "debates" and arguments... vs. how much time am I actively listening to my set up, my music?