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

@amir_asr Incredible that people with eyes wide open continue to claim that they only used their ears.

 

There you go again, making assumptions that everything is black or white and there is no such thing as "gray" in between. This is common engineer-only type of behavior and reaction. Its to be expected. Nobody confirmed we are only using our ears. Only you said this. We all see how you make up your own rules and conclusions, yet typically not respectful of others input when it comes down to it.

Sure we respect measurements. It’s a helpful guideline to test, measure, validate however we can, the best we can. Most everyone gets that Aamir. However, it does not encapsulate the whole spectrum of what some hear or don’t hear. I believe there is a long ways to go with scientific measurement, tools, and what’s going on with humans and hearing today. There are wild animals that hear and see things in the darkness that we cannot even begin to fully understand yet as humans.

One last thought - your measurement results do not always coincide with what we are hearing some times. Your definition of "perfect" is your opinion, not always fact for some of us here. This is something you will likely choose to continue to ignore. That’s okay. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion - whether you like it or not. That’s what makes for good horse races and keeps audio alive and well LOL.

 

 

Amir seems to like to argue for the sake of arguing. I noticed that he conveniently fails to highlight in his example the words…’However, I couldn't escape the feeling that the amplifier's tonal balance was on the lean, cool side.’

 

instead of believing what I posted about Halcro’s, I suggest Amir buy a set of their amps, he will marvel at their spec’s, and he will probably enjoy their sound. Plus, he can get a very good price on them…I wonder why? LOL.

@daveyf Clearly he likes it. He has spent so much time its kind if not believable on here. And he is arguing on his site. I like a good debate as much as the next person but at a certain point I want middle ground and a commonality. He is like the Antifa or Maga of audio

instead of believing what I posted about Halcro’s, I suggest Amir buy a set of their amps, he will marvel at their spec’s, and he will probably enjoy their sound. Plus, he can get a very good price on them…I wonder why? LOL.

The feedforward technology in that Halcro amp (and prior, from Kenwood and others), has completely transformed the headphone amplifier market.  THX reintroduced it by eliminating the inductor in the design and with it, make a giant leap in distortion and and noise.  Drop.com shipped an amplifier with it in it and changed the industry forever.  The amplifier was raved about by both objectivists and subjectivists.  

The THX design then created an arm race among a number of companies to even better its performance.  They used a composite op-amp technology (op-amp in feedback loop) which avoided THX patents while producing even lower levels of noise and distortion. Topping was the first company to do this.  Check out their latest incarnation, the A70 Pro:

 

Check out the stunning performance as far as distortion and noise:

Distortion is at whopping -150 dB.  As a way of reference, best case hearing threshold is -115 dB.  We now have 35 dB of headroom!

The noise performance is better than the best DACs even though this amplifier produces more power:

At $499, this headphone amplifier costs less then the shipping cost of many high-end gear!

It is this kind of transformation which is fueling interest in what we do at ASR.  The measurements have created a closed loop process with clear goals of what needs to be done to create state of the art audio products.

Same technology is now used in low to mid power power amplifiers with similar stellar results.  Again here is Topping LA 90 Discrete:

It now beats Benchmark AHB2 which was also based on same feedforward technology as Halcro/THX:

Will be interesting to see if they scale it up in power some more.

Net, net, there is an incredible world of technology that you are not aware of.  It is advancing in real time and provide incredible pleasure to us as true music lovers who want full transparency to the source.  

"LOL" indeed but not in the way you meant it.