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

It is our disagrement here... You ask me to prove what is evident : it takes listening test not only meassuring test to evaluate gear... You even said it yourself and you do it..

Our disagrement is simple: we cannot reduce hearing to Fourier theory and we cannot extrapolate our design abstract measure to real hearing test predictivity... We must listen to improve the design... All audiophiles are not the same, some are deluded, some are less deluded, thats my point...  

The evidence of reality is not oscillator results but the acoustic space occupied and your ears.

Not really.  The space between your ears is your brain which interprets and makes up stuff all the time.  It especially does that if you allow your eyes to feed it information too.

What we care about are the sound waves going into your ear.  In many cases we can prove conclusively that they have not changed yet the lying brain says they are because you let your eyes help it that way.

Van Maanen use the same Fourier tools as any designer, but he used new idea for components design parts... How can he prove that his design is good out of a listening test ? 😊

 

 I dont need a proof to know that our fourier hearing theory dont tell all the story , it is in psycho-acoustic books... There is MANY hearing theories..

But i dont need proof to know that we must verify the design basic quality by measures but ALSO listening... And i trust trained listeners...

 

The fake science crowd pushing Toneloser gear is one of the reasons I stopped frequenting A’gon.  

There are plenty of engineers and designers, actual smart people, whose measurements make sense.  Galen Gareis, formerly head of design for Belden offers many technical specs and reasons why he designed his Iconoclast cables, and offers specs on each cable that ships.  

The late great Bascom King, aside from being an esteemed engineer and designer (whose amps I am enjoying right now) used to do measurements for magazines and once measured an amp with much lower distortion than any other.  It sounded poor.  

The fake science crowd is all about feeling good thinking you’ve drinking champagne as good (or better than) a premium brand.  Actually maybe that’s a new business model for them, they can measure premium beverages and debunk Dom Pérignon!  Or maybe do stress tests on The stitches of Gucci jackets to prove that Kirkland brand clothes “measure” better.  
 

I better rush and register Menswearsciencereview.com before someone else does.

I’ll buy a new usb microscope so I can verify thread count of the sheets I just bought, so I know if they feel soft or not.  

I think it’s pretty pointless to argue against use of measurements to establish what is good sound reproduction. Note that good sound reproduction is different than good sound. One is objective the other subjective.

It’s also true that metrics alone do not tell the whole story. They are capable of getting things right but are often applied incorrectly or incompletely. It’s worth arguing that case by case but not that metrics are always the whole story or that they are of no value. It’s really not so complicated to understand. I find much of the content of this thread pretty useless.  Maybe Amir’s site has more to offer.  I’ll have to check it out more often.