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

@daveyf 

@amir_asr   In my hypothesis, I was attempting to point out that IF a speaker was ever designed that could sound like what people (including you) believe to be as close as possible to the sound of 'real' instruments in a 'live acoustic space', and if this very same speaker measured poorly; people like yourself would point to the measurements and not believe in what their very own ears were telling them! 

This does not exist.  It cannot exist.  You are saying you want to be in the two places simultaneously.  Again, what extensive research across many decades shows is that we as listeners prefer accurate and neutral measuring speakers.  

This is no top of your premise that people thinking some speaker reproduces real instruments from a recording that itself is not such a copy. 

You can't make up scenarios that are in conflict and don't represent reality and then draw conclusions from them.

But let's say what you say is true.  Then what you call "bad measurements" are the measurements we want to look for in speakers.  In that regard, those measurements would be considered good, not bad.

This is fundamentally where I believe we differ in our approach to music reproduction. You are seeking something that you believe looks right on a scope, or with the measurements say is what should be 'musical', whereas I am looking for a product that can reproduce the closest to what my recollection of the 'real' sounds like.

Not remotely the case.  I listen to every speaker I test.  I  have already said that measurements are about 80% predictive of speaker performance.  That last 20% such as directivity is not quantified. 

The difference between us is that I believe in comprehensive research into speakers says that we can easily rule out bad speakers with measurements.  That if they measure poorly as you say, we can conclude with high confidence that without other biases, majority of listeners would not like such a speaker.

As a former pro musician, I may have a bent/bias on what that is, but it also has allowed me to be exposed to numerous instruments and their sound in varying venues. If a product meets with my expectation of this sound, and still measures poorly, I have no concern on this. 

That's fine.  Have your personal belief.  Come back when you sit in a blind test and your beliefs prove to be reliable.  I have.  I found that my beliefs were NOT reliable in that situation.  I repeated it.  Same outcome.  What happened?  I voted just like majority of listeners situated completely different than me.  So I had to throw out my own personal notions of what is correct and listen to what science says.

OTOH, if the product measures well and does not meet with my musical expectation, I am not interested. That simple.

Wouldn't be mine either.  Again, this is why I listen and occasionally go against the measurements and recommend a speaker.  Again, it is OK to fall in the 20% bucket.  But don't say the science knows nothing about this domain.  We know a ton.  A ton.  Dispute it at your own peril.

@amir_asr Then what is @soundfield talking about when he says you have never participated in a blind test outside of your own?

It is a common place fact that speakers must measure neutral and good...

But the design of speakers is a craftmanship too not a mere industrial process..

No one can negate the useful necessity of measuring tools...

The problem is imposing our own theory of what is hearing and what is musical...

The problem is infering from measures only the excellence of the qualitative results as CERTAIN...

Bad measuring speakers will not sound good, it is a common place fact...

Good measuring speakers, not only will not sound as musical as someone wishes but they may displease most people...

Speakers design is also a trade off art... measuring well is not enough...

The problem is Amir want to create a standard in design... It is not a bad idea in itself...But imposing it will negate creativity in a field where there cannot be a perfect speaker anyway, and there could not be ONE SINGULAR PERFECT SPEAKER FOR ALL NEEDS Why ? Because speakers are interesting by the mutiple trade off choices they offer by DESIGN ...

We have standards in video.  Has that screwed up the market for consumers? It has not.  People can still choose to buy a 40 inch TV or a projector.  The standard says produce the video signal to represent this shade of red.  We do the same at playback and we see the same shade of red.  No such thing exists in audio.  Folks can create pink and call it red.  And we play it back as magenta and go on claiming that looks like the real thing.  

The standards are not about design.  They are about defined fidelity.  

And no, a device doesn't have to be perfect.  A perfect mastering display costs $50K.  But you can buy a $1,000 TV and come darn close to it.  And we can prove that using objective measurements and subjective confirmation.

A speaker can have bass down to 20 Hz and cost $20K.  Or be one that stops at 40 Hz and cost $1K.  As long as they are both neutral sounding, that is perfectly fine and good.  A speaker can produce 120 dBSPL that costs $100K and if it is neutral, that is just dandy as well.

What is wrong with this market is that you are sold a speaker for $100k that clearly colors the sound bad ways.  It gets sold because they send a review sample to a magazine and get raving review -- guaranteed.  It is a corrupt industry that way.  Only way out is independent evaluation which is what I am trying to do.

I would think you would be in favor of all of this.  But seemingly you are not.

@amir_asr  - hi there amir, thank you for your participation in audiogon, and your extensive replies. I have a question that is very important to me to ask, and I hope you will find my request in the sea of responses this thread has become. There is a pretty basic test I found on the internet, of listening ability based on two different digitally configured formats, one in a higher resolution. Here is the said link -

 

https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/how-well-can-you-hear-audio-quality

 

To make it more difficult to hear the sound quality and thus evaluate, lending deeper weight to the results, I had twelve different friends listen to the test tracks on the same mobile phone, with the same rather basic earbuds. 

 

Three of them were all over the place with their evaluations, a few got just a hair over half correct, but four of them got every one of the six tracks correct as related to which was higher in resolution. None were allowed to A/B/A the tracks, just an A followed by a B. The friends were all between 39 and 65, and there appeared to be no correlation between age and the test results.

 

The equipment was the same in every case, and not the best to evaluate sound quality with, but it was felt to be the best way to test the effort and abilities of the listeners. All things considered and in the absence of perfect testing conditions, can i trouble you to advise if this was a  good way to test for listening ability?

Thanking you in advance. 

 

In friendship - kevin.