Did Amir Change Your Mind About Anything?

@amir_asr wondering if there are products you like to listen to that didn’t measure well? Does what you actually enjoy listening to always correlate to good metrics?

BTW thanks for spending some time here. I know it can be a tough crowd sometimes. Your site is very impressive and indicates a lot of time and hard work spent trying to put some real parameters around products that people might actually be able to afford. I think that is a valuable service and wish more people did it. You seem to have a lot of dedication to what you do which is admirable. I suspect many truly interested in learning appreciate what you do. FBOFW. Nobody is perfect but striving for excellence is something that should be valued not put down.

BTW I also appreciate your focus on issues discussed.  No personal attacks.  That makes a world of difference in regards to adding value. 

The fact that my posts were clumsy stylistically and too long is not the crux of the matter at all in this debate...

@mahgister calling everyone idiots isn’t helping get people to listen to your repeated long winded exclamations. You aren’t listening to why people are tuning you out.

First i respect you and never call you a name because you are RATIONAL... This must be clear..I called idiots the one who ask me to shut and go... You are not one...Then putting in my mouth the false fact that i called everyone idiots is a claim i dont like... You can apologize...

Second i answered your last post because you say that you can RATIONNALLY argue SUCCESSFULLY agaisnt Amir position..And put him in a corner where he will only be able to babble only ad hominem attacks with no more a rational argument .. I did it...

Third i ask you on what basis you arguments will be better than mine ?

Now you say :

I already explained with my donut analogy. You can look at and test food for composition all you want but taste will always be subjective. And tasting food is the whole reason it’s made. We don’t make donuts to watch them and study them.

Then basically your ANALOGY is only that an analogy... It is USELESS to argue against Amir with ONLY this analogy...

In my too long posts, i used10 articles and i appeal to the logical epistemological FACT that no MEASUREMENTS tools can be read in acoustic OUT OF A CONTEXT : a hearing theory...

i put Amir in a corner because save by ad hominem attack against Van Maanen, and childish simplification of the result of Oppenheim and Magnasco experiment and without adressing their CONCLUSION and the MEANING of this experiment in the context of hearing theory , he could not logically sustain the idea that his measurements can PREDICT qualitative perceptions from the human hearing as described in the ecological hearing theory which anyway encompass the Fourier hearing theory and correct it...

And you think that my long posts explaining this complex subject with Amir and criticizing Amir is useless and your Analogy is enough to put him in a corner ?😊

Thanks for not asking me to shut up and go cas the idiots who ask for it ... Your analogy is not an argument and Amir will live well with it... But he cannot OPPOSE any argument against ecological hearing theory and he cannot oppose any argument to Magnasco and Oppenhein analysis of human hyperacuity and his meanings for understanding the power and limits of linear Fourier measures set in psycho-acoustic...

Why do you think my posts were long ?  No one can resume a complex matter and arguments in few words and analogy... I dont harass people... I think... Some others harass people here and they ORDER  me to go...

If you think anyone can repeat shortly a one line analogy and win a debate ...You are naive...

it is not AN ARGUMENT...It is a only  that an  analogy Amir will smile at, he will not babble without words save ad hominem arguments with a mere analogy ...

By the way my style can appear rude sometimes by me i APOLOGIZE when i am wrong... i Stay polite... But i dont accept to be bully by idiots.. You are not one for anybody who read my post correctly...

my very best and total respect to you...

@mapman No one is putting down his hard work. What isn’t okay to is to point the finger and say hey you’re wrong I’m right. He does it in a condescending, rude, and yes sometimes uninformed way. We’re all human here, I think. Amir cherry picks people to attack and remove from his website if they don’t agree or bow down to him. How is that objectivity in the name of science?!

Fortunately Amir doesn’t run this forum and can’t play the almighty. There is no way this discussion could take place on his ASR. Isn’t that interesting? I would’ve been banned already.

@amir_asr Well, measurements show why it is not perfect. For measurements to fail, would have been if it didn’t show that!

I was following a scope readout by a tube amp designer recently who was acknowledging a "non-perfect" sign wave existed in the last design iteration. The top left corner of the sign wave was lively, less than perfect in terms of uniformity, yet reportedly sounded really good, alive and well, when the amp circuit was left as-is. Letting it be or hammering it into submission was the next case study to tune and listen more. This is where things get to be a LOT more interesting to me.

This designer mentioned when taming those little sign wave spikes (aka flare), now making it a more uninformed and perfect sign wave, all of the sudden the amp sounded "dead", no longer alive or enjoyable any more, bleh. After several tests, the designer then made a conscious decision to let it be, since it sounded much better in its original untamed state after extensive listening tests. This is what many of us mean by "listen first and then measure". Putting more emphasis on listening and what sounds best as a means to an end, rather than making graph lines flat.

Some of the popular mid woofer speaker drivers I’ve used from Scanspeak are this way, measuring less than perfect, yet they are alive and musical as-is when left alone - "less tamed" if that’s a description that resonates with a few members here. With tests showing a bit of less-than-perfect jagged flare on the graphs in the upper midrange frequency range on the last drivers I used - most electrical engineers would beat it back into submission with an overly controlling crossover. Some look at this flare as noise, distortion, needing correction. That’s one point of view, not all.

Once again, in my own self made speakers later discovered leaving the drivers as it was designed resulted in a captivating and engaging sound - left in less than perfect form. Sometimes what is perfect to an electrical measurement engineer is not always perfect music to others ears. Most of the audio systems I enjoy listening to do not measure perfectly at all - fwiw. The absolute best measuring dac I’ve ever owned was one of the worst to listen to. Sounding "dead", or boring being a great description.

Unfortunately a debate that won’t be solved on this tread it seems.

@mahgister your points are valid to state. I’m not as savvy on audio science. I admit that. I also admit that science is really important with audio gear. Just as it is with medicine and improving peoples vision for example. 

My analogy isn’t scientific but is based in fact. You cannot strip out the subjectivity of audio. Just like you can’t do it with food or anything to do with taste. You can’t measure taste. You can’t quantify it but it is there. And in some cases it doesn’t translate from culture to culture. One dish might be revered in some culture and detested in another. The environment the experience and the way the food is prepared all matters. Same goes for audio. It doesn’t occur in a vacuum.