Did Amir Change Your Mind About Anything?

@somethingsomethingaudio 

I haven't defended Audioquest USB cables.

This one appears to fit the definition of snake oil.  Implausible claims made

for the cable that, predictably, do not bear out when tested:

 

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/audioquest-pearl-usb-cable-review.36448/

 

 

@texbychoice

Alas, the story did not end well. After spending $10K on the processor, I spent another $5K to upgrade it.

The snake in snakeoil bit you in the butt. Wonder what kind of reception the above statements would receive over at ASR?

Your confusion of what is snake oil and what we are at ASR are your problem. You seem to think anything expensive must be snake oil. Do you go around saying that about a BMW?

Our mission at ASR Forum is to see if a product is well engineered or not. If it is, then you as a consumer get to decide if you want to buy it. Many times these products low cost but often, they are very expensive. That cost cannot and must not be held against them because it does cost money to produce some products that are pretty, produced locally, have great support & reputation, resell price, etc. For that reason, except in rare cases, price is not a consider for me.

Here is a review of the Mola Mola Tambaqui USB DAC and Ethernet streamer. it costs a cool $11,500.

In case you are not familiar with my "panther coding," it got the highest award I could give it. Why did I do that, because it is superbly engineered to reduce noise and distortion:

At the time, it shattered all records, landing on top (left) of the SINAD chart:

Here is how I finish the review:

Conclusions
The Mola Mola Tambaqui DAC shows again that just because a DAC is designed from ground up, it need not perform poorly. It is actually the opposite with it performing at the top of the class with respect to distortion and noise.

Since I am not the one paying for it for you to purchase it, it is not my issue to worry about the cost. As such, I am happy to recommend the Mola Mola Tambaqui DAC based on its measured performance and functionality.

While I never use the term "snake oil," members use it to refer to products that a) are expensive and b) don’t meet any of their claims of superiority or effectiveness. Someone mentioned Audioquest USB Cable. This is how that rated:

Panther coding says someone is after your pocketbook than delivering better sound. Here are the manufacturer claims:

See all those mentions of reduced distortion. We can measure that. We do it day in and day out:

Now with AQ cable:

No distortion is reduced whatsoever. Even when measuring to 20X human bandwidth of hearing, nothing is changed as far as noise and distortion:

 

Here are my listening test results:

Audioquest Pearl Listening Test
I plugged my Dan Clark Stealth Headphone into the Hugo 2 DAC and started to listen. The Stealth is a sealed back headphone with the lowest distortion I have measured in a headphone. So if there is a difference, this is the most ideal way to hear it.

I queued up a track with lots of ambiance and delicate sounds and started to play with AudioQuest USB Cable. The sound was as wonderful as I remembered it. I then switched to Generic cable and instantly the sound was louder and there was better clarity all around! This effect quickly faded though in a few seconds indicating typical faulty sighted listening test effect. From then on, I could not detect any difference between the two cables.

Hence my summary of the review:

Conclusions
I know many of us consider these results "as expected" but it is always good to verify how time after time, very accurate measurements show no difference between generic/cheap and premium cables. That premium is not a lot in the case of AudioQuest Pearl USB cable. So if you want to get it, there is no major harm done. Just don’t expect any audible improvements from it.

I can’t recommend the Audioquest Pearl Cable if you are buying it for audio performance.

The TACT processor was expensive because such home theater processors have always been expensive. You can’t get them with balanced output for less than a few thousand dollars. High-end ones comparable to Tact today cost even more. Here is Trinnov Altitude 16 Review. It got a "good" rating from me even though it cost $17,000:

See? Not hard to understand what we do. Go and spend proper time on ASR and you would know. If you don’t, ask me questions.

@texbychoice 

So lets agree that his $15K device worked at one time and he verified improved FR with measurements and listening.

Great.  So it's not a snake oil product.  And yet you'd quoted Amir saying it wasn't a snake oil product and implied it may as well have been.  That's the sneaky part I was getting at.

As to Amir's views on crossover parts - he's either right or wrong.  You don't decide this by continually calling him arrogant.  He walks the walk - puts up objective evidence for his claims.  Anyone is welcome to do likewise in debating any of his claims.   As for room treatment, again...you can take his claims to task...or not.  But  all the stuff about "ego" is a sideshow, and one only concentrates on that if they don't have a substantive argument against the claims.

I believe Amir linked to an ASR thread in which his arguments about room treatment are being critiqued in various ways, by people adducing technical claims, measured evidence etc.  So, maybe read on it, make up your own mind.

My own room has forms of room treatment, and I enjoy experimenting with it to achieve various goals.

 

Saying "anyone" on this forum needs to do scientific research is baseless and overstated. I do scientific research. I don't do things without research and some sort of basis in reality

Ah, what are examples of that scientific research?  Hopefully it is about audio since you brought it up here but do tell.