The Audio Science Review (ASR) approach to reviewing wines.

@analog_aficionado ..."I’ve built, lived with and loved tube amplifiers with rather embarrassing distortion figures compared to the modern benchmark. I’ve also built solid state amps following the guidance of famous objectivist Douglas Self, and while the result measured extremely well (~0.004% THD), the subjective listening experience of my earliest efforts was... disappointing to put it mildly. I kept using my tube amps while spending years trying to decipher how to build a better sounding solid state amp."...

I’ve always been fascinated about this part of amplifier design and the few remaining OG designers who still choose to use their ears to decide what sounds right to them for the final version that goes to production.

As for the amplifiers that I’ve owned or borrowed and enjoyed the most, none really offered what anyone would refer to as spectacular measurements.

This post was inspired by a question posed by @kjl1065 in a post in Tech Talk titled  'Seeking a Power Conditioner'.

In it the OP wrote:  "Read reviews on both Niagra 1200 & Puritan Audio PSM 156 power conditioners and the reviews were extremely positive. While reading I came accross a review of both products by Audio Science Review (ASR) who claims his reviews are objective with scientific data supplied and his reviews were not nearly as positive to say the least. Anybody have any thoughts on how I should proceed with the differing of opinions."

There was clearly an opportunity to voice an opinion about the ASR approach to audio reviews that in this case was based only on measurements but without any listening, and so the wine analogy was born and I thought it would be fun to expand on it here.

This was not meant just an exercise in ASR bashing, but as an exercise in educating those who might not be as familiar with ASR that they should be wary of their absolute opinions.

I believe that objective measurements are important, but so it the subjective listening experience.  Objective and subjective balance and complement each other as we see in the Stereophile approach to in-depth reviews.

Interesting discussion.  I read ASR for a while because I found the reviews with data helpful. I also read and listened to reviews on other sites that discussed listening impressions.  Put them all together and you get a sense if a piece of equipment is worth checking out.  The thing that turned me off about ASR were some of the comments that were posted.  If someone posted they liked a piece of equipment I would often see posts using measurements to challenge the post.  Then I would see it get personal with comments back and forth that were very negative.  I listen to music and read about equipment as a hobby to get away from the day to day grind and all the negativity that seems to be at an all time high.  Life is too short.  I don’t have time for negativity.  One of the things I like about this site is I see that people share their opinions and they’re respectful and usually positive.  As Hans says, enjoy the music.  

@analog_aficionado Outstanding post (the long one). Helps very much to understand and reconcile the differences between ASR results & listening. Thanks!

I am in the camp that says ASR is a single source of information just like every other review. 

measurements are critical to audio, but a 100 grams of german chocolate measures the same 100g as  100g of dog crap. they dont taste the same.

a coupla other observations:
refusing to grasp the limitations of measurement is some form of flat-eartherism.
"objectivists" are ayn rand devotees. that has nothing to do with hifi audio.