Did Amir Change Your Mind About Anything?

amir_asr

But such engineering explanation is not going to make sense to audiophiles as they are not technical and so will dismiss it out of hand.

That is just a prejudicial statement. As with any group, all audiophiles are not alike, although I understand why it’s convenient for you to portray them that way.

Indeed, this is why objectivists failed to make headway for literally decades.

Most objectivists do just fine in the audio world, as is demonstrated on this site every day.

What we at ASR do is go above and beyond. We measure. We measure the signal coming out of your gear ...

But you’re not an objectivist, you’re a measurementalist. That’s how you can sweep aside any empirical evidence that doesn’t fit your agenda, which is to drive traffic to your forum and website. And it’s how you can just positively know how something will sound, without ever having gone to the trouble of actually listening to it.

And we even offer listening tests with real music. But the latter is not really necessary. I just provide it to get past the objection of "well, you didn’t test wiht music." OK, we did and the outcome was precisely as we said it would be.

Expectation bias; even measurementalists are not immune. In fact, they may be especially vulnerable.

Your use of bold face fonts does nothing to further your argument, btw.

@soundfield 

Hmmm, so the Great Amir can't measure it, but can hear it. My my, that sure sounds audiophile myth familiar doesn't it? Coming from the Great one??

There would be nothing wrong or inconsistent with that, and it would be consistent with a scientific mindset.

Often enough observation of a phenomenon comes first, then we try to explain it more rigorously with other empirical evidence, hypothesis testing, measurements etc.   Anyone could reliably observe that certain reptiles, e.g. chameleons, could change their color well before we understood and quantified the phenomenon.

What counts as an observation that requires such inquiry will necessarily interact with our current body of (tentative, but reliable) knowledge.  If it contradicts well known and reliable fields of knowledge then you don't have to pay much attention to claims that would undermine that theory, unless they had very strong levels of reliable observation behind them - e.g. someone claims to have seen a Perpetual Motion Machine in his friend's garage isn't going to count as an observation that requires rigorous inquiry.

But, for instance, if it turned out people were reliably able to detect sonic differences between A and B, in well controlled tests, where this is unexpected on current theory, then yes that becomes a reliable observation you'd want to explain.

And then seek perhaps evidence to support a hypothesis as to what is objectively happening, e.g. try to find relevant measurements. 

In other words: there is nothing in principle wrong with reporting hearing a sonic difference that one has not measured (or been able to measure as of yet).

This is why Amir has been pretty consistent in often emphasizing the relevance of listening.  (But...under conditions controlling for variables, when seeking higher confidence levels).

@cleeds

But you’re not an objectivist, you’re a measurementalist.

Is that what you call your doctor?  Because he measures?  Or do you rely on his knowledge and experience and the fact that he uses measurements as a tool to aid in his diagnosis?  

That’s how you can sweep aside any empirical evidence

What evidence?  I posted results of double blind listening tests.  You don't even dare to run a listening test without your eyes involved. It is an insult to the word "evidence" to call that such.

Really, all the complaining in the world is not going to change the fact that your fellow audiophiles are finding a path to knowledge of audio systems on ASR.  We are not perfect but we do try to stick to what is provable, not what is imagined.

@soundfield

Hmmm, so the Great Amir can't measure it, but can hear it. My my, that sure sounds audiophile myth familiar doesn't it? Coming from the Great one??

Don't play game of Calvinball.  You claimed the measurement gear behind me in new videos I produce can tell you the difference between files in blind tests.  I explained to you that those devices are not capable of detecting such things as bit depths in music files. 

That was your claim and it is falsified by the fact that you can't show any of these devices to do what you said "in theory" they can do.  They can't do that in theory or otherwise.

Remember, we are talking about analyzing music here, not equipment.  Analyzing music can be quite non-trivial depending on what you are searching for.  Simple thing like dynamic range of music cannot be determined from any commercial software.  Or even accurately using custom software.  We can make a statistical analysis but exact answer would be hard or impossible.

@mahgister

What is the impact of a photon of light when you hear an informative qualities perceived from two singers whose tone interact ?

None i know of...

That's right.  Sometimes the simple is the answer.  We don't need to dabble in philosophy or obscurity to analyze performance of something as simple as a DAC, audio cable or amplifier. 

You asked questions about the papers you presented.  I answered them simply and clearly together with proper back up. You keep saying I didn't and go on posting about philosophers.  No one is engaging you on the topic from your camp because stuff you are writing don't make sense or are relevant.

Instead of writing more, come back with the results of any controlled listening tests you have run that disagrees with measurements and are basis of your theories.  That is all that matters, right?  The sound we hear.