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

@laoman Interesting product. Thanks for bringing it up. Bruno is a measurement-first engineer. Anything he makes is guarantee to measure well, but is not a guarantee they will sound good.

There is so much discrepancy between how the Tambaqui sounds, vs its pricetag, vs its measurement. I’m gonna make an argument and say it’d have made more sense for everyone, Amir included, if the Tambaqui measured bad instead.

Full disclosure: I have not heard the Tambaqui

1) Based on owners impression and reviews. The Tambaqui performs on the level of Chord Dave, and DCS Bartok. The pricetag reflects their performance as well. Chord Dave - $14,400. Tambaqui - $13,400. Bartok $20,950. Bartok is 50% more but I digress (I've been told Bartok used to be very close in price to the Tambaqui).

2) Bartok measures BAD. Dave measures BAD. Tambaqui measures GOOD. Huh?

3) Topping D90se - $900. Measures GOOD. It measures so good that it is nearly identical to the Tambaqui. $900 vs $13,400. Nearly the same measurements. Huh?

4) I’ve owned the D90se. It sounded bad, subjectively bad. There is just no way the D90se would sound as good as the Tambaqui despite the measurements. The measurements for these 2 products make no sense, no sense in price, no sense in performance.

So to conclude, the measurements make no sense, Amir once again proves his data is meaningless. 3 products of similar performance, 2 measured poorly, 1 measured great. Makes no sense. Logical conclusions cannot be found at ASR nor from Amir. The only thing that made sense here is the pricetag (kind of).

This is what Amir had to say at the end of his Tambaqui review,

"Since I am not the one paying for it for you to purchase it, it is not my issue to worry about the cost. As such, I am happy to recommend the Mola Mola Tambaqui DAC based on its measured performance and functionality."

He’s happy to recommend the Tambaqui when the D90se can be had for $900. Such a humorous clown. 

Laugh out loud, roll on floor laughing again until I poop my pants. 

Do not buy anything based on ASR recommendations.    Buy based on whether you like the sound.  And there are plenty of products they bash soley on specs that actually sound excellent.  So don't pass on a product just because they trash it.  .   That's my take away.    

This post has acquired an interesting and persistent energy. ASR is clearly neither trivial nor unpersuasive or why would so many try to denounce it?

I occasionally go to ASR to read their reviews. Their contributors don't appear to be particularly reductionist or dogmatic. If you know what they are using for testing, you can take that as a data point and move on. Their peanut gallery in their comment sections are what you will find anywhere, people who opine based on the review and not anything more.

What no site appears to do is true blind listening tests using a standard setup for 2 channel audio, and using self-validating methods (e.g. testing the same system twice to look for variation of the listener's attention and judgment.) 

@samureyex 

Well, I notice that you only responded to one of my 3 examples, lol!  But with respect to DACs,  I think each of the measurements is intended to reflect some specific aspect of sound.  Whether you like that quality is of course up to you.  But the measurements are intended to, and I think generally do, correlate with a specific quality.  For example, a high signal-to-noise ratio means the signal produced by the DAC is high compared to any background noise or interference, which in turn means that the DAC is likely to sound “clean” and retrieve a high level of detail.  So the benefit of ASR measurements, which was one of your questions, is that they help informed consumers of the data know which DACs they might prefer if, for example, detail retrieval is one of their listening priorities.  

Finally, I’ll reiterate that I don’t believe that these measurements tell the whole story about any DAC.  Two of my four current DACs measure among the best ever measured by ASR.  But my favorite of my 4, while it hasn’t been measured by ASR, would almost certainly not measure as well.  And it may well be that my fave is a little less detailed, or has a little more second harmonic distortion, or maybe it just has a little more bloom in the midrange cuz it has a better power supply.  I’m not sure, and I’m totally fine with that.  I think some of us have a tendency to get way too dogmatic in this hobby.  I include some of those at ASR as well as some here at  the ‘Gon.  Bottom line, I believe ASR has added a lot to the knowledge base for many in our hobby, and I appreciate that.