Did Amir Change Your Mind About Anything?

@mahgister Fair enough. Having also worked on studies of human subjects in later careers in technology, I can assure you that subject reports are clouded by an enormous range of biases, expectations, timing effects, etc. Amir goes into the problem of performing even simple tests to distinguish systems and how challenging it is, so I have strong doubts about the subjectivist-style claims and how intellectually honest those folks are!

I just don't see any downside to leaning heavily into objective tests. I've only seen poorly-designed tests (often headphone tests are impacted by problems with the ear cups, for instance) that were problematic.

Anyway, I learned some new stuff today! Always a good day...

No one is against blind test... but blind test is not a cure... Nor replace any training...  By the  way i use some form of blind test in my room tuning  even sometimes  by accident...

And we must distinguish between unconscious biases and consciously acquired biases as an acoustician and a musician training for years... I am not against Amir measures as informative...

I am against ideological uninformed stance about human hearings for the benefit of a very limited set of measures which can detect if a design is faulty at best not inform us about his ultimate sound quality ...

I dissociate useful Amir information from his limited understanding of human hearings because he sell his tools and methods and for doing so say that all people trusting their ears are deluded...

For example i trained myself tuning my room... it was not perfect, but i learned basic facts... And there is no comparison at all between before and after my one year full time acoustic experiments... is this perfect as a job ? not at all... but it cost me nothing and i learned about all acoustic concepts by EXPERIMENTING... i know what means this acoustic ratio for example not by theory or by an equation not even by a mere computing ( ASW/LV) but by specific practice in a small room with his acoustic content ... Not by reading an equation... in the process i learned how to trust my hearings even if it is an inmperfect tool and a biased one... Who dare to mock me because it was imperfect ?

What is the best ? Training our ears and learning how to listen...or buying and learning nothing ?

You speak about ears cup of headphone ...

After loosing my acoustic room i was sad... I embarked in a 6 months of listenings experiments on my hybrid AKG K340 headphone.. The main problem was the complex ear cup control... This headphone is one of the most complex design and one of the best... i opened it and put mechanichal control for vibrations, erase the protective plastic grid that was there not for the S.Q. but for protection , i experimented with the right volume for the dual chamber of the shell with the thickness of the pads, i equalized them a bit with a large band equalization , i discovered the right amplifier for it ... And wow! my sadness disapeared after this 6 months... This headphone is speaker like and project according to the recording process a soundfield out of the head and i could no more detect any defect as in my first day listening.. Not bad for a used 100 bucks headphone... All my other 9 headphones even modified sound artificial and headphone like...

Without my trust in my ears whay did i could have done ? NOTHING ... I would have criticized the headphone design as some reviewers did without bothering themselves to understand the design to begin with and serve it well ... i even read the Dr. Gorike patent... 😊

i trust my ears not because it is perfect but because i work with it...I used measures when i need them... i dont trust measures as truth about hearings sorry...

Many people cannot understand that the human ears USE frequencies SELECTIVELY and filters them to perceive OBJECTIVE QUALITIES, speech, music, natural sounds , and these qualities INFORM US A LOT about our surroundings they are evolutive affordance for our survival but the human hearings is not frequencies based in a linear way , it is timing based in a time dependant way... What we hears from an audio system is complex and cannot be replaced by limited linear measures set...

Thanks for your respectful answer ...

@mahgister Fair enough. Having also worked on studies of human subjects in later careers in technology, I can assure you that subject reports are clouded by an enormous range of biases, expectations, timing effects, etc. Amir goes into the problem of performing even simple tests to distinguish systems and how challenging it is, so I have strong doubts about the subjectivist-style claims and how intellectually honest those folks are!

I just don’t see any downside to leaning heavily into objective tests. I’ve only seen poorly-designed tests (often headphone tests are impacted by problems with the ear cups, for instance) that were problematic.

Anyway, I learned some new stuff today! Always a good day...

@amir_asr   Hey sir, I'm with you.  

But as you well know, you'll never convince some people that an inexpensive wire can possibly sound as good as an expensive one.  I'm convinced, but many won't be, can't be. (Speakers, however, are more personal, though measurements even with those can be a guide through the marketing haze.)

It's easy to delude ourselves, especially with money invested.  More tweaks, more money, etc., had better add up to "better sound -- I can hear the difference" or it's wasted and most people don't want to admit they've been duped by marketing or are fooling themselves.

It is incredible that almost nobody from ASR can read the articles i put and understand them...Why ? 

First, I had already read and knew about the Oppenheim and Magnasco paper.  It made the rounds when it first came out.  Many jump to conclusion thinking that paper gives the subjectivist ticket to ignore measurements.  Reality was, as I have explained repeatedly, it has no relationship to measurements let alone going that far.  The test simply states that our prediction of simultaneous detection of frequency and its timing is too conservative.  That for special type of signal at least, our higher order brain function is able to tease out more performance.

I had not seen the Van Maanen paper before but once you mentioned I did.  What is in there is mostly marketing of high-end audio with some contrived simulations that have little relevance to the point you or he are trying to make.

@curtdr 

Thanks a lot.  I agree that the band leaders are beyond convincing.  I am pleasantly surprised though how many people have changed their views on such tweaks.  That did not come because we just said they are useless but because comprehensive set of tests were performed across so many of them, and explanation given as to why that people started to see the logic in it and shifted their views.  

To be sure, it seemed hopeless for years and decades.  Arguing with words wasn't enough.