While Amir is definitely aloud to have his opinion, it’s rarely shared by me, so I haven’t looked at his channel in years.
The Audio Science Review (ASR) approach to reviewing wines.
Imagine doing a wine review as follows - samples of wines are assessed by a reviewer who measures multiple variables including light transmission, specific gravity, residual sugar, salinity, boiling point etc. These tests are repeated while playing test tones through the samples at different frequencies.
The results are compiled and the winner selected based on those measurements and the reviewer concludes that the other wines can't possibly be as good based on their measured results.
At no point does the reviewer assess the bouquet of the wine nor taste it. He relies on the science of measured results and not the decidedly unscientific subjective experience of smell and taste.
That is the ASR approach to audio - drinking Kool Aid, not wine.
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A good friend of mine is a winemaker of some renown. I've been following his efforts since he started out, I've helped with winemaking many times, we had numerous conversations about the fine points of the craft during which I learned an awful lot and, of course, I freely offered my unbiased feedback based on consuming vast amounts of the product. I'm a helpful guy. To make a long story short, winemaking is science-driven to an extent that truly surprised me back then. A good winemaker, or brewer, or distiller for that matter, is in large part a chemist and on the ground level, the incremental experimenting, documentation and chain of custody are straight out of science 101. OP should familiarize himself with enologists and what they do. ASR has value. Audiogon has value. Other venues and publications have value too. The more points of view - and data points - we have, the more empowered we are to make choices. Which, ultimately, are for us to make. |
@analog_aficionado this seems like the most complete explanation of the disparity between certain audiophile communities and ASR. I'll try to enhance your points without reiterating too much. Measurements have their place. The measurements aren't the problem with ASR. the problem is the mob of people that pounce anyone that says "hey this is better even though it measures poorer" As if someone could hear the difference between -120 THD and -110. I agree that at this point, most of these numbers are meaningless as we are well below the 1% THD threshold. Which is another funny point in all this. ASR claims to say "you can't tell the difference between amps and cables" based on studies done over 50 years ago, and yet will quibble over -100 Sinad vs -120. It seems completely absurd to me to both say you're WITH the science, and at the same time be quibbling over measurements that should have NO audible effect based on the "science" And I have a problem with him listening to the speakers, but not any other equipment because "it all sounds the same" - then what is the point of measuring all of this junk???? After hearing things that they don't measure make a truly substantial differences in my system (Shunyata power conditioning and cabling, proper speaker cabling), I realize that I can only use them for measurements and for feature set breakdowns, NOT for choosing my equipment. The sad thing is, the "happy panther" scale always rewards the highest measuring equipment because of the horde of stat hunters that are ready to say it's better without hearing any of it. It's sad really. These guys are all audio lovers but are sitting there with their $500 topping DACs and amplifiers, running their kefs, with amazon basics wiring thinking they have the best system money can buy. I used to be angry about it but now I just feel sorry for them. Sorry that they probably will never experience what a true hi-fi system can do to a person. Great discussion here, OP |
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