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

Ok small set of electrical measure of dac amp and speakers overcome psycho-acoustic facts about the limits of electrical measures and hearing theory facts about the ears/brain ...

 Amir was not able to contradict even one point of my discourse about magnasco and Oppenheim  experiment... You dont read it prof ?

You are a great scientist prof no doubt... 😊

I’m not saying Amir is perfect or some objective Deity. I’m just observing the quality of the arguments here, and Amir is providing the higher quality arguments thus far.

@prof No he doesnt have to admit wrongdoing, but he never is wrong. I have yet to see it. His record is unmatched in that regard. See the above. He cherry picks things to support his agenda, and then doesnt acknowledge the subjective side. I pointed out a review where he didnt do a listening test on a $20,000 speaker, which at the beginning of this whole forum chat he said he does for every speaker because listening tests matter. For that TAD speaker, he said he didnt have time. Which is it? You cant have it both ways. He might be doing well in some respects, but answering that, and why oh why he previously said he doesnt level match but now is religious about it, is suspect. See how he didnt respond to my questions? instead he responded to someone else's. He wont and then I will have to ask again. That is what we call gaslighting. He then can say LOOK, this guy is being rude and unkind repeatedly harassing poor Amir. NO! He is not being transparent. 

He routinely kicks people off of ASR like Erin from Erin's Audio Corner, who I have not seen do anything worth being kicked off for. That is subjectivity. Why not let the people figure out what angle is better. By the way Erin has the same measurement tool and is after objective results. You would think Amir would want to combine forces. No his ego gets in the way. 

You are an Amir apologist. You say you arent but then all I see you do is defend him, except for that 1/100 moment you showed me a while back. 

I pointed out a review where he didnt do a listening test on a $20,000 speaker, which at the beginning of this whole forum chat he said he does for every speaker because listening tests matter. For that TAD speaker, he said he didnt have time. Which is it? You cant have it both ways.

So you can find one review in which Amir didn’t have time to listen...and just ignore the reams of reviews in which he listens?

That sounds like more of a hunting-and-pecking agenda on your part, than any deep inconsistency on Amir’s part.

I haven’t seen the other exchange you mentioned. I’m not aware of Amir saying level matching wasn’t important, for rigorous listening tests.

 

You are an Amir apologist.

Sticks and stones .... :-)....I don’t really care what you call me, I’m just interested in the quality of arguments here. He’s more right, more often, than other people in the thread from what I can see, and he’s generally not saying things I disagree with. When I see that happen...I speak up, which I did. I don’t honestly care what ratio I need in order to pass whatever purity test you might have in mind.

I fully support your challenging Amir, but if there was something major in which you had prevailed in the debate, I seem to have missed it.

Ironically, I’m quite sure I pollute Amir’s forum with more purely subjective stuff, and defenses of subjective descriptions and reviews, than anyone else there, to the chagrin of some members. If you ever looked at a lot of my posts on ASR you will see me constantly sticking up for these things, against all sorts of criticism.

 

 

 

 

"That is a comment I made in passing which is being misunderstood by you and even some reviewers (Darko comes to mind). The point I was making that in some cases like speakers and especially headphones, correlation of measurements with listening preference while strong, is not conclusive."

Yeah that's what I was talking about.  I don't misunderstand you.   You admit that measurements can't reliably tell what sounds good.  More so with speakers and headphones and less with cables and DACs. 

So I'm just wondering if you would hazard a guess as to how well measurements will determine how the different audio product categories will actually sound to people.  How much they like them.  

 

 

 

 

@prof I quoted this discussion AJ pointed to

I did not level match anything. However, once I found one source was worse than the other, I would then turn up the volume to counter any effect there. Indeed, doing so would close the gap some but it never changed the outcome. Note that the elevated level clearly made that source sound louder than the other. So the advantage was put on the losing side.

About the listening test believe it or not, I didnt cherry pick. I am actually looking at the smaller bookshelf 3 way design TAD and so I searched. Interested I read the review. I did no hunting. Now I have done hunting and it does seem to be more the exception to the rule. However a lot of the listening tests seem rushed or like an afterthought. This is why I like Erin's Audio Corner. His subjective listening is first. What he thought about it. Then the objective comes into play. It's unique because he gives the conclusion first.