Not an accurate analogy. If you want to be accurate you would have hundreds of blind reviewers and take the aggregate like Harmon-Karden and Floyd Toole did. Only then can you know the "probabilities" of someone liking something. ASR is using the measurements defined by studies such as this.
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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I have several problems with the site and with Amir, but mainly it is the name “Audio Science Review”. Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. What hypothesis is Amir testing about the universe, the designer’s hypothesis that their device sounds good when listened to with our ears only tested through, say, an APx555? I suggest “ASR” is not pushing the boundaries of “knowledge” or “science”, but is applying engineering principles that are 50 or more years old as a proxy to “review” audio gear in isolation and in place of careful listening. This is not “science”, and it is barely a “review”. It is “measurement”, or “testing” or “applied engineering”, but it is not “science”, and labeling it as such should be an embarrassment. I do believe there is a relationship between measurements and experienced sound of audio gear, but I definitely do not believe the line is linear nor the relationship conservative across all gear and all applications, ESPECIALLY when you place that gear in your system in your room with your ears in your seating position. No way. I would be a lot more comfortable if the site was called “Audio Measurement Inferred Review”. See what I did there? kn |
I see the same mistakes being made again. Being against ASR is not the equivalent of being against measurement. Hold up a dac in your hand. It is a product of pure science, and engineer. To say that we don't trust science or data is pure nonsense. I said it in one of my earlier post, everyone at ASR wants data and measurement but then something magical happen, they wait for subjective reviews and user experience. Let's go back to the extreme basic. In Amir's testings, all cables proved to be the exact same. To be as frank as I possibly can, anyone with a decent system and 2 functioning ears would know this to be false. CABLES DO MATTER and if your test says otherwise, your test is wrong. If you can't do a cable measurement. What exactly can you reliably measure? |
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