Let me start by saying I like watching Amir from ASR, so please let’s not get harsh or the thread will be deleted. Many times, Amir has noted that when we’re inserting a new component in our system, our brains go into (to paraphrase) “analytical mode” and we start hearing imaginary improvements. He has reiterated this many times, saying that when he switched to an expensive cable he heard improvements, but when he switched back to the cheap one, he also heard improvements because the brain switches from “music enjoyment mode” to “analytical mode.” Following this logic, which I agree with, wouldn’t blind testing, or any A/B testing be compromised because our brains are always in analytical mode and therefore feeding us inaccurate data? Seems to me you need to relax for a few hours at least and listen to a variety of music before your brain can accurately assess whether something is an actual improvement. Perhaps A/B testing is a strawman argument, because the human brain is not a spectrum analyzer. We are too affected by our biases to come up with any valid data. Maybe.
@mijostynThe result of all this is an entire industry based on deception. As long as it is not my money why should I care?
Two ideas there - of course it is none of anyone's business about the spending proclivities of people outside of your personal circle.
However, due to the absence of prudent market regulation, an industry built on deception is far from optimal. Due reward and incentives are not forthcoming to those with novel and robust products and who by definition do not partake of the deception cup. Innovation in these pursuits is relatively stifled.
Everyone has their opinion and that's all it is including mine. The only way to get beyond opinions is with vigorous testing including our ears.
Yes, you've frequently issued these proclamations about your "One Way" of testing. But this is a hobbyist's group, not a scientific forum. No one here needs to satisfy your "rigorous testing" requirements.
... personal preferences tells us nothing about the component only about 1 persons preferences.
It's probably best that you speak just for yourself, rather than pretending to speak on behalf of some unnamed "us."
Saying an half truth will not solve the problem...
The ear can deceive YES and the measuring tools can deceive us also when we focus on one aspect of sound only, or when we focus on the GEAR or the TOOL instead of the acoustic multidimensional aspect piloted by our hearing...
People throw their money in upgrading the GEAR because the measuring tool say so in the publicity...
Instead of upgrading toward costlier components, learning acoustic by ear will liberate them from the consumers market conditioning selling the GEAR because of some MEASURED specs say so , underestimating acoustic experience of our trainable ears is the sin of the measuring fads and the cardinal sin of the SELLERS.......
Acoustic is not only a set of equations it is also a brain/ears experience and the dynamic correlation between the two in real time in our room ...We must learn our room...
Saying that the ears are not trainable because it cannot be trusted is like painting yourtself in a corner....
Repeating that the ears are not to be trusted is an half truth worse than a lie....
The problem for many people is they trust their own perception. This just does not work well for hearing. The result of all this is an entire industry based on deception. As long as it is not my money why should I care?
@chayro, not at all because in AB testing you are comparing two subjects with the same frame of mind so whatever your frame of mind is cancelled out as long as no biases creep in which is the tough part and why double blinding the comparison is the best way to avoid bias. None of this is that serious. It is not like we are evaluating medical treatments. I do AB comparisons for myself and my own education and could give a squat over what other people think.
The problem for many people is they trust their own perception. This just does not work well for hearing. The result of all this is an entire industry based on deception. As long as it is not my money why should I care?
@redlenses03His methods have been debunked numerous times, depending on where you sit in obj vs sub viewpoint.
Why should the legitimacy of methods used for the purpose that they are intended depend on where you sit?
To advocate such a view in aspects of western civilization would result in bias, unfairness and a breakdown in tolerance and the rule of law.
As one person said on the first page of that link -
Just... Whatever you do, please don’t let mr A back in. Natural justice? Giving the man a chance to respond? Bugger all that. There is no end to a conversation with A: let’s not have one.
It is is not a question about pure audibility in a quantitative measurable way ONLY, it is mainly a question about the information content in what we hears...
Then a ears/brain trained musically and acoustically is not necessarily "Better" in his power of resolution than some another non trained ear/brain, the learned biases make him able to perceive what another similar pair of ear will never " see" without training... A bias is also attention focus piloting ability, a guidance, not only a blinder, or a bad conditioning....
What we hear, his content, color, form, dynamic, living qualities are not determined only and mainly by a decibel meter or by the measurable brute Hertz range...
The information content about all the qualities of a resonant body, a cavern, a piece of wood or metal, a fruit or a vegetable, a musical instrument, or any resonant object put in a state of vibration by us and from which we extract many HIDDEEN qualities, this information content is notmeasurable in Hertz and in decibels at all....
The only fact that you seems to ignore this voluntarily speak much louder about your opinion than anything you will say about the Hertz range of audition and decibel range which anyway is true for sure...We are limited, and saying that is a common place trivial argument that do not go to the crux of the matter...
The specific intonation of a player, the listener envelopment acoustic factor, the micro structure of a playing instrument timbre, the meaning of a symphony, the synergy between musicians, the reverberation time effect on imaging and timbre in a room , etc all that and many others characteristics, like echolocalization in trained blind people has a great information content we must learn to perceive, and perceiving it dont means that i PRETEND to be a "bat and that i claim that you are limited compared to me in the Hertz range and in the decibel range...
Decibels and Hertzs are ONLY some quantitative aspects of sound, and attacking someone because he claim that the ear is better than any limited measuring tool reflect only ignorance, no one ever pretended to be superior, or a "bat" out of the human range, to do so it is not fair and it is scientifically naive...
Anyway we are all potential training bats also....The ears is the beginning and the end for any musician and acoustician journey, in a way any measuring tools could not ever be...Any tool will be more limited anyway in all those other dimensions of sound that the multidimensional ear/brain which will be able by contrast to capture, isolate and translate a sound in a new information content...
We must learn to be listener in spite of our limitations....Great acoustician, great , musicians, some blind people can train us....
And remember that in human history the worst limitation of man are the self imposed one...Not the evident one....Calling them miracles will not erase them from our own potential ....
In a word: we "see" the complez information content of the sound, we dont hear it ONLY in Decibel and in Hertz or in Savart scale dimensions or in any other measurable dimensions....
You may hear better than I and 90% of the population but that tells us what? When you hear good enough to pick product A from B when they both measure beyond human audibility or measure within .1% variance using only your ears in a controlled testing regimen then you’ve told us something useful.
That site is more a marketing place for topping and others and not much to do with audio. As with any forum there are some good, intelligent, level headed individuals, but ultimately its all about the extreme side of the measurement police and his ego IMHO.
His methods have been debunked numerous times, depending on where you sit in obj vs sub viewpoint.
My system recently started sounding better and although I hate to admit it, it could be due to my newish speaker cables hitting the manufacturers 500 hour break-in point. Who knew? Perhaps the manufacturer...
Everyone has their opinion and that's all it is including mine. The only way to get beyond opinions is with vigorous testing including our ears. You may hear better than I and 90% of the population but that tells us what? When you hear good enough to pick product A from B when they both measure beyond human audibility or measure within .1% variance using only your ears in a controlled testing regimen then you've told us something useful.
This is true but it doesn't really tell us anything.
Some, because of experience, training, open-mindedness, or simply physiological advantage hear better than others.
The point of Amir's video mentioned in the OP is trying to get us past these notions of sighted listening being all that useful for anything other than personal preferences of the aesthetics of the item. Buy what you want, like what you want but personal preferences tells us nothing about the component only about 1 persons preferences.
If we happen ramp the volume up to 90dB, does it really matter what goes on below 0dB? Measurements can be irrelevant, especially if you generally don't go much beyond 70dB.
Obsessing with excessively low THD+N etc can mean overlooking excellent sounding equipment.
Amir was polite and i dont doubt about his honesty and dedication at all....
I am less patient with his many disciples on the site ASR....
Very disagreable experience for me....I am very naive when it comes to discussing our experiments...I supposed that people can forget their opinion for the sake of a discussion... 😁😊 It is not often the case in life....Save among friends...I prefer audiogon with all his defects....Because of a better variety of opinions...
Anyway my own position is hard to figure out by people used to separate subjectivist and objectivist in children like warring camps like in Swift Gulliver big egg end kingdom and small egg end one...
I am inspired by music field and acoustic and psycho acoustic where this division about a piece of gear which must be "tasted" OR must be "measured" make no sense at all...
In my experience and experiments ONLY correlation between measures and subjectivity which is the ultimate judge make sense....
My best to you....
Mahgister,
Not trying to be sarcastic. Just trying to point out, with a nod to Oscar Wilde, that Amir is earnest and so are you. Maybe two earnest. Two sides of the same coin?
djones, I don’t understand why you find it necessary to personalize matters; and in a contentious way. Apparently, my opinion on the subject strikes a chord that causes defensiveness and the use of sarcasm in you. Why does it bother you so that my opinion differs from yours? Defensiveness is usually a sign that on some level a person knows that there is truth in the “objectionable” comment.
Now, please explain where in what I wrote did I say anything about using ONLY one’s ears? Let’s try it again, shall we?
+++. **** We use the tools at our disposal to assess and make decisions. Some do it better than others …… **** - mapman
…. and this includes the best tool of all, our ears. +++
Notice that I wrote “includes”. Inclusion is not exclusionary. However, I do believe that of ALL the tools available our ears are the best guide. Why shouldn’t they be? Ultimately, we LISTEN to the sounds that our gear reproduce, no? And, yes, some do it better than others.
So, why don’t you take a chill pill and let others have their opinions; and, if you must, debate without sarcasm. Or, is all this a bit of cross-thread grudge?
**** I am always amazed of the hilltop pontificating about use your ears yet nobody seems willing to do so. ****
Not trying to be sarcastic. Just trying to point out, with a nod to Oscar Wilde, that Amir is earnest and so are you. Maybe two earnest. Two sides of the same coin?
What's the matter? Pill stuck in your throat? Correct, your subjective opinion using your ears and 'eyes' you conveniently forgot those , contributes nothing towards furthering knowledge about a product. I am always amazed of the hilltop pontificating about use your ears yet nobody seems willing to do so.
In a word we can see the world with the ears, like some blind people already did, but we will never spoke with the eyes...Even if some particular popular idiom say so....
Hearing is complex more than the eyes and incorporate the visual system not the opposite...Ears are able to retrieve deep hidden information and translate it ...
The eye redistribute SOME of what is already spatially there...Eyes dont create a complete new world like the ears did with what we call MUSIC or SPEECH , two complete new worlds of sound anchored in the human body....
How simplistic will be someone who think we can "measure" hearing creative power, or even only his "audible" resolutive abilities or his interpretative power, with only a decibel meter linear scale to decide what we can hear and what we cannot ?
Any sound is a complex body of potential information not measurable by the Hertz scale sorry....
What human ears are able to listen to is not CUTTED linear chunk of sound measured in decibels...Decibel meter cannot evaluate acoustic meaning but can help to implement better physical conditions for his experience thats all...What i hears cannot be described by a narrow window in Hertz sorry...It is more complex than that...
Human ears/brain listen to an integrated and an integral totality of information so complex to figure out that NO TOOL right now can replace the ears/brain translated interpretation and creative system...We can add to it some electronical appendice yes to help some, for some task, but we cannot replace it in ALL his functions for now, because ears are integrated not only with the brain, BUT WITH ALL THE BODY system and even with the eyes brain system....
Read psycho-acoustic....
I own a book of 800 pages about TIMBRE perception only, and no simplistic explanation of what is timbre perception exist and will never exist... Guess why?
It is because ears are not a "tool" like other measuring tools.... Ears dont measure very restricted and specific aspect of sound ONLY AND MAINLY but create also new meaningful aspect of sound or TRANSLATE natural sound in located meaningful one and ESPECIALLY RETRIEVE very conplex information HIDDEN deep in the sound source resonant body and in his environment...
And saying that the eyes /ears interaction may create biases is not false , but it is completely ridiculous argument when someone want to discredit ALL biases, especially the one we must cultivate in acoustic to learn how to listen because he doubt that some reviewer hear what they hear and ask for blind test all the time like an opinionated children or a measurement fanatic ...
Of course placebo and nocebo effect exist in the TWO directions though, wanting to listen something or negating to have listen something... Of course blind test may be useful to eliminate biases in some necessary experiments...But nobody learn acoustic and acquired the necessary biases to do so and tune his room/system with blind test only and mainly...
We must learn HOW to listen, not erasing all biases at all cost, in the opposite we must develop and cultivate many new biases... Replacing old biases by new one...It is precisely the task of an acoustician and of a musician...
Anyway, half joking here, my room/system is anything but beautiful to see.... Too much ugly devices... Then.... No esthetical biases here for me.... 😁😊
By the way human ears can almost do what bats do in a great measure: read about echo localization in blind people...
And survival evolutive history did not end many thousand years ago, man create civilzation and music and language with his ears... Survival here is survival of cultures and not only survival of the physical body by localization of sounds...
A musical sound is so complex to define that i own a 1200 pages book about it ande musical sound is not ELUCIDATED scientifically for now...It is the same phenomenon for speech sound...
«American bats will never understand French sound»-Groucho Marx 🤓
I don’t know where this notion of ears being a great tool, they’re "tools" cobbled together by millions of years of evolution they’re simply good enough for us to survive. There are tools that hear way beyond human ears just as there are tools that see way beyond the human eye.
I don't know where this notion of ears being a great tool, they're "tools" cobbled together by millions of years of evolution they're simply good enough for us to survive. There are tools that hear way beyond human ears just as there are tools that see way beyond the human eye.
and this includes the best tool of all, our ears. IOW, some use their ears better than others. Some, because of experience, training, open-mindedness, or simply physiological advantage hear better than others. Hard pill to swallow for some, but true.
Some use their ears and eyes not just their ears which means it's simply a subjective opinion that applies only to the one making the claim with the problem of bias not accounted for. It contributes nothing to gaining knowledge about a product. Hard pill to swallow for some, but true.
@phantom_av- Nobody is 'forced' to do anything. I see negative reviews of gear on YouTube reviews all the time. What will make people stop paying any attention to reviewers is if they always say everything is great - people buy something a reviewer says he loves and the buyer doesn't like it, that buyer will quit paying attention to that reviewer....
For someone to say you do not need to listen to a piece of equipment before buying it and also that the synergy of various components makes no difference is so funny.
Egg-zactly. But some people will buy a car without driving it first. Or they’ll buy a suit without having it properly tailored. It makes no sense.
Y’all should build one of Nelson Pass variable distortion aka negative feedback machines, to better understand your own ear / brain preferences for……distortion…
Or a Music Reference ( Roger Modjeski genius RIP ) w 3 levels of negative feedback, careful level matching and you can hear for yourself what more negative feedback ( TIM ) does to image depth… See Opus 3 disc on image depth.
IF ya can’t tell i am in the Measure AND Listen camp, the interesting overlap a wise poster above mentioned…..
I just acquired a new piece. Not able to hear it prior. Had to make a decision without hearing. I did that based on experience with similar gear what I read + my own personal assessment of what could fit the bill. Bought from a vendor with a very good return policy since yes you never know for sure until you hear or try.
I consider the whole measure versus listen argument just a bunch of gaslighting. Sometimes you can’t hear first so you have to decide based on other things like the facts about how a product is advertised to perform and how it actually does. Specs are good for helping make decisions about what to listen to. Measurements are supplemental pieces of info that can help but only if applied properly which takes some degree of knowledge. Which is why as I said we all use the tools available to us to decide. Obviously our own ears are the ultimate test. Just ignore fanatics where ever they might pop up.
**** We use the tools at our disposal to assess and make decisions. Some do it better than others …… **** - mapman
…. and this includes the best tool of all, our ears. IOW, some use their ears better than others. Some, because of experience, training, open-mindedness, or simply physiological advantage hear better than others. Hard pill to swallow for some, but true.
It gets so tiresome, the continual attempt on the part of some to tell others that they can’t possibly be hearing what they hear. Whether it is an “improvement” or not depends on what one’s goal is. If the goal is a subjectively pleasant sound without consideration of any reference other than personal taste, then all bets are off and there is no point in debating the issue. If the goal is to get as close as possible to the true sound of music, then the more exposure to live acoustic music the listener pursues, the better the chances of recognizing real improvement and reaching the goal; yes, all those variables and all. Those who claim that all those pesky variables are a “deal breaker” are simply using too broad a brush when listening and not willing, or able to do their homework (live acoustic music exposure).
I’m relatively new to high end audio after listen to Spotify on an Amazon echo speaker for many years. I recently got a space where I could pull out my 30 year old college system - haffler amp, nad pre, and definitive tech speakers. I got tidal plugged in my iPhone and was very happy. Then I got tired of not having a volume remote and replaced the preamp with a new one (tube preamp from audio van alstine). The immediate difference was gigantic and I was shocked a pre amp made such as difference. I’ve since replaced all my gear…node streamer, Pontus DAC, van alsten amp, and audio physic speakers.
here is my opinion on the matter (just my simple one man’s world view…):
there are 3 kinds of system “improvements” or “investments”
1. Something that clearly makes a difference and you can A/b test all you like yo prove it but any rational person will hear it. This was the case of my pre-amp. It’s also the difference between echo speaker and my 5k speakers! These are rare examples probably only for those who are starting out in this hobby.
2. something that sounds better but is subtle and hard to distinguish when doing some basic A/B testing. But over weeks and doing lots of listening you get there. This is real but it’s subtle and it comes down to hearing same source differently on the different devices. When i added a DAC to replace my node internal DAC (originally with denafrips ares) this happened. Immediately the sounds wasn’t that different. But over time I could hear it. Could still be bias or whatever but to me I can hear things better than before.
3. the last category is things that make us “feel better” but have no sound quality improvement. This is most controversial but it shouldn’t be. When I replaced my radio shack speaker cables with BlueJeans custom made/welded cables I felt better but nothing sounded better. Same for the 100 dollar power cord I got for my amp. Does anything sound better because if this - hell no. But I have a 10k stereo system and I feel better with using quality cables. Nothing wrong with that. For instance - if someone wants to spend 5k on a PS audio power conditioner or whatever that’s their business. It won’t do anything for sound quality at all. But having clean power feeding a very expensive and special system isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It would certainly make me feel better about my system.
I enjoy reading ASR and then then reactions at the other forums about this topic of measurement and A/B testing. Been thinking and reflecting a lot about it myself and therefore wantEd to put my thoughts down. Thank you for listening.
@bruce19But much of the audiophile pursuit is just pushing boundaries a few percent or less at a time. That is where the really big money gets spent and ironically that is where data is almost never presented.
Yes - step outside the echo chamber that is so entrenched by decades of big money, deflection, dishonesty, manipulation and other unethical norms of behavior. It won't hurt very much :-)
Reviewers make money from the industry to review products, this also helps them to fund their hobby by gaining products at distributor pricing or even lower. If reviewers kept giving honest reviews about products being over priced and under performing no audiophile manufacture would ever give them a product to review again.
The same can be said about the Uber expensive audio products which constantly are supposed to be the best of the best.
Not all reviewers are dishonest people but they are foced to always write faviourable reviews. If they dont they loose out on further products to review which in turn results for them less work and earnings.
I read ASR when I want a laugh. For someone to say you do not need to listen to a piece of equipment before buying it and also that the synergy of various components makes no difference is so funny. Seriously, the site is a joke.
It puzzles me why the debate about measurement vs. subjectivity sometimes gets so fierce. Why can't we have both? I certainly want both. I appreciate that what we can measure may not represent the sum total of our listening experience. But if properly done it represents an accurate, objective characterization of at least one dimension of a product. It is better than nothing.
I like to trust my senses but oh how they can lead me astray! As several of you have said already in reference to your selves; I know that my listening reflects my mood, my physical state and many other variables. I liken it to wine tasting, some pretty plain wines can taste pretty great in the right setting, with the right company and/or the right food and vice versa.
At some point the differences get large enough that quality can be discerned fairly consistently. But much of the audiophile pursuit is just pushing boundaries a few percent or less at a time. That is where the really big money gets spent and ironically that is where data is almost never presented.
Lets continue to push for as much data as possible along with the knowledge to connect the numbers to our sensations; but meanwhile we all will also have to keep listening as well as we can. I follow Amir and the folks at ASR and learn some things there, just like I do here. When there is overlap I usually get more interested.
When making purchases in this hobby/sport, at some stage we have to bite the bullet and trust our senses. There are products and technologies that exist that effectively re-create the music we love with more finesse, more sense of realism and triggers a response for recognition of music/ instruments with less effort, engendering more enjoyment.
I do understand that different doesn’t equate to better, however, variety here might be the distinguishing factor that makes a different device stand out or be of interest.
I would hope after a point of exposure to higher quality equipment and setup, and opportunity to hear live music played in a variety of venues, we the end users can recognise truly better gear when we hear it?
“I weight my senses as the final arbiter.”
I do subscribe to this thinking, and yet I see no weakness in trusting the skills of veterans in this craft if they are willing to point out and describe differences while listening. I believe it’s the recognition, the statistical matching of the authentic and the re-created that transports our consciousness into more or less accepting the artificial as pleasant and beautiful.
If we can’t at all trust ourselves, how are we supposed to engage in swapping out and reorganising our system to allow for the variety the sound the system can itself make to the presentation??
We change music for variety, I think we change our system for it as well.
people who refuse to use their senses and rely on tech measurements, exclusively
This is focusing on tools, and ignoring another variable - preferences.
An analogy. Two people like red cars - same preferences.
One will investigate the properties (measurements) of the paint and say it is a red that is OK. The other will use their eyes and say that it is a red that is OK.
Now - let’s change things a bit. The first person now likes silver cars, and the second still likes red cars.
Different preferences, *and* different methods of arriving at their preferred solution.
I would say with some certainty that the second person who likes red could also use properties (measurements).
Examples - the recent Carver amp. Nelson Pass’s kit (? camp) amp. Some other things that Amir places in the red corner of his rankings - useful information!
and I will assume for the sake of this conversation that Amir is well intended and professes what he believes to be true. I will assume that his forum is his pet project meant to “debunk” years of supremacist audiophile unobtanium. The happy few will continue to revel in the performance of their true to life systems while ASR fans will take great pleasure in sharing the critical opinion of their oscilloscope guru, Matrix references and all.
Enough of the us versus them. We are all the same. We use the tools at our disposal to assess and make decisions. Some do it better than others and some are kind enough to share their findings.
My advice to his followers is simply to go out, listen, make up their own minds.
Not sure if your advice makes sense to the ASR crowd. Because if the measurements are not good, then the product is outright dismissed. They follow ASR mod's mind, not their own. You have high expectations from people who refuse to use their senses and rely on tech measurements, exclusively 😀.
End of the day let’s all agree to disagree. Some people enjoy Amir’s opinions. Others don’t.
I personally can’t be bothered to validate or comment on his experiments because, unlike Amir, who KNOWS he can’t be wrong because his numbers don’t lie, I have had first hand experience with some of the “exposed” products and I couldn’t disagree more with him. I don’t care what Amir thinks he KNOWS about a power plant because I have heard both P12 and P20 extensively and the difference they make in some systems is not subtle. I have heard what an audiophile switch can do even connected to cheap and cheerful streamers so, again, his lambasting falls on deaf ears.
My advice to his followers is simply to go out, listen, make up their own minds. Most of these products can be demoed for free, PS Audio has a generous return policy, no questions asked. Why not try a P12 for free and see whether Amir is indeed the Neo in our audiophile Matrix or the woman in the red dress?
Measurements are great.
HOWEVER...
We measure what we think to measure. There are so many things going on that we don't have a measurement for. Yet some will put way too much weight on measurements.
We need both. But I weight my senses as the final arbiter.
I do agree our ears and brains are much more sensitive than many can imagine.
For me blind tests are problematic...because our minds want to discriminate the 'outstanding' stuff...the most noticeable stuff while we may filter out nuance. Long term testing is needed to rule out mistakes and quantify the nuances.
If something sounds better but you keep yearning for the other option...well, something else is going on. Possibly something we haven't a measurement for.
Learn to develop and trust your senses...
First, the OP reports Amir as claiming confirmation bias in "analytical mode": "when he switched to an expensive cable he heard improvements, but when he switched back to the cheap one, he also heard improvements because the brain switches from 'music enjoyment mode' to 'analytical mode'.” If this were true, however, one could in theory continue switching out "better" for "lesser" components, experiencing an "analytical mode" confirmation bias each time, until one was left with a Walmart rig (that is, a system we would all agree sounds terrible; I'm not impugning Walmart, merely coining a shorthand). If every change I make to my system results in a subjective impression of improvement, I could never move forward at all. This is tantamount to just saying: there is no audible difference between systems. But that is obviously false. So this methodological claim is logically flawed.
Second, as one other contributor to this thread has written, the brain's memory for subtle auditory cues is extremely short. Therefore, the only way to judge whether or not a given system change causes an audible difference is by instantaneous A/B, or better still, A/B/X blind testing. Again, this well established neurological fact is inconsistent with Amir's reported claim.
Third, as has also been mentioned here already, loudness needs to be very carefully matched between A and B, which is often extremely tricky to do. Louder will almost always sound "better," even when the difference in db is so slight that it isn't perceived as a difference in volume level. This is why people claim balanced cables sound better. XLR cables are advantageous in certain circumstances, but not in any that are relevant to home audio systems; in fact, for home audio, balanced is slightly (measurably but not audibly) worse. However, balanced cables are a few db louder, and so often are perceived as sounding "better."
Fourth, we're talking such subtle differences here anyway that a host of what might be called psychoacoustic phenomena become much more relevant. It's a little like wine tasting. The chemistry of one's mouth, which varies with the food you've eaten recently, with the state of your digestion, and a lot of other things, as well as one's mood, the company one is with, and so on, will affect one's impression of a given wine, which makes it very difficult to say that a given bottle is better or worse than the very same wine tasted on a different day.
Finally, the wine analogy perhaps shows why, despite the fact that the brain has too short a memory of subtle sonic differences to make comparisons over extended listening times (hours or days or weeks), it is still that long-term experience one must try to evaluate. Although the same bottle of Napa Cab from 2016 will taste differently on different days, or at different times of the same day, it is still possible to know with confidence that I prefer the bottle of Screaming Eagle (or whatever) to the Walmart Special—or even to a wine comparable in price and reputation to the Screaming Eagle. Similarly, I know with some confidence that I prefer system X over system Y as a result of hearing both repeatedly over a long period of time. It can't be that my brain is comparing subtle differences only evident in instantaneous A/B testing, and yet it is just as surely the case that I can, and do, have psychoacoustic preferences that are consistent over long periods of time.
Currently it is an LLC (Audio Science Review LLC, registered in Washington State). It is not setup as a non-profit with respect to IRS so unfortunately your donations are not tax deductible. Worse yet, I have to pay taxes on them.
Edit: I am highlighting this as there still seems to be some confusion about this.
I stand corrected. There are no ads on their forum or YouTube channel. However please see above. In other words the website does generate revenue (profit).
It appears that the fake science site are such complete amateurs that they measured the wrong AC output port on their recent power conditioner “review” according to Paul McGowen, who said they should issue a retraction for their shoddy work.
I call it the “idiot with an analyzer” phenomenon, but psychologists have a term for this kind of limited intelligence masquerading as knowledge.
“Dunning-Kruger effect, in psychology, a cognitive bias whereby people with limited knowledge or competence in a given intellectual or social domain greatly overestimate their own knowledge or competence in that domain relative to objective criteria or to the performance of their peers or of people in general.”
Maybe the ASR guy can explain to me why my all tube, all analog, electrostatic speaker, 2 channel system sounds better than my SS, digital based, conventional box/driver HT system. The specs and measurements are BETTER on the SS system...?
Not one person who has ever heard both would say the HT sounds better (to them).
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