Audio Science Review = "The better the measurement, the better the sound" philosophy

Yup, I've experienced my sighted impressions "dissolving away." It's both a  humbling and amazing experience. I've done it both with cables and testing a burned in amp against an identical model that hadn't been burned in. I can't express how obvious the difference in sound quality seemed to me during the sighted listening, so having the effect completely vanish just because I couldn't see which device I was listening to was like experiencing magic. In the end it taught me how malleable my perception of sound quality is to both conscious and unconscious expectations. My ear transduces the sound and then my brain interprets the resulting signal in the light of other sensory information.

I don't know why, in this day, it is still so controversial @asctim .  It should be obvious to everyone that we use multiple senses all the time. For food, both taste and smell, but we are also influences by site. The visual input you are receiving of your environment influences what you think you are hearing. If there are two sets of speakers in front of you, and one is very large, and one is small, you will assume that a deep bass note is from the large speaker. It could be from either or a sub you don't even see. We intentionally have control groups and placebos in medical research because humans are so influenced by their present environment and condition that it is the only way to collect accurate data. Audio is not any different.

@axo1989 , one minute you are an expert in engineering, one minute you are an expert in accounting. That is quite the skill set.

@crymeanaudioriver I thought I was replying to @cd318 so my mistake. I’m not so interested in your aggressive communication style so don’t expect an extended discussion. I’ve given you enough to go on, you can figure out what material interest means and how it may apply in this context perhaps, if you are sufficiently curious. The number and scope of gifts to ASR certainly crosses the usual thresholds for declaration in the regulatory sector that I have experience in.

If ASR / Amir were to start selling the devices, than you could claim it was a gift. The same would be true if the devices started being used as entertainment devices within his home and others. It is almost a given the suppliers are providing these units as non-commercial samples for evaluation, not intended for resales. Companies provide samples for evaluation to other companies all the time. The company sending marked as an expense, the receiving company does not mark as a gift. As ASR sells nothing, markets nothing, it would be a hard stretch to consider the units sent as "input" to their end product. It could even be argued that what Amir is doing is a "stress" test and hence the units are unusable after.  

Of course at the end of the day, like most of what you have wrote, there is a lot of conjecture with a goal of discrediting.

My style is not aggressive, it is accurate. If someone is making claims that are false, or not supported by available information, then I am raising that as an issue. If someone is doing that with the goal of discrediting another individual, then they should not expect soft treatment. Would you prefer I used the wording potentially libelous?

@axo1989 , this is just one of many posts where you are trying to put forth that you have technical chops,

The part I asked you to respond to was your statement that my "takeaway" after amplifier listening was contrary to audio (and psycho-acoustic) research. The points I re-iterated were quite sound, but I was interested in your counterpoint (as opposed to your talking points).

But by your own admission, you are just legal/regulatory, and the comment I made w.r.t. to "gift" is tax law, which does not seem to be your forte. I don't think I have seen any other reviewer clearly say whether the reviews were loan, load with discount to buy, etc. so your attack, again, is specious, and given they don't accept advertising, they are already many steps above others from an optics stand point.

Still waiting on those youtube links. I already expected they did not exist or did not say what you claim, but now I am rather more sure.

w.r.t the gift, arguably, the review that Amir provides, assuming the product is technically competent, is of far more value, monetarily, to the company that provides the product, so the concept of "gift" is questionable, not just from an accounting standpoint, but a logic standpoint, and even a dictionary definition standpoint.

French or regular?

Providing strings of measurements that all demonstrate factors beyond anything that can be heard by anyone or have any effect whatsoever on the sound that can be heard is totally futile, making decisions on such data is totally ridiculous.

@henry53 the only way to interpret your statement above is that ASR is measuring to sufficient accuracy to far exceed human hearing. In a PM, you also stated -80db IMD is also inaudible, so that further supports a claim that ASR is measuring well beyond audibility.  Can we assume the same is true of their noise measurements?

The concept of preference has been raised many times in this topic and even Amir has said he is not here to tell you your preference. He did state that it was in your best interests to take into consideration the results when he tests, and his tests show no change. I think USB cables, and power conditioners were in that statement and likely others.  @henry53 , are you saying you agree with ASR, at least in this instance?   Or are you staying there are as yet undiscovered tests, which Amir is not doing. If so, can you allude to what those tests may be?

@djones51 it is easier to throw stones than make a meaningful argument. That is why they throw stones at me. I only entered the topic as the behavior was so poor. @henry53 admits that the ASR measurements provide enough resolution that they are beyond audible limits, but appears to be claiming they must make some other unknown test. For a cable, especially a digital cable, or power conditioner tested by measuring the whole system I can't imagine what that is.  The tests are extensive. I am not an engineer but it is obvious that all those complaining are not either.

@prof  I wonder if many of the people participating in this topic will realize that what they are writing, the way they write it, and how they misrepresent ASR, Amir and measurements in audio, will not be perceived by many who read this as a definitive debunking of ASR, but as a definitive debunking of their own beliefs?

European companies large and small are pushing the envelope especially in speaker design, class D amps, active DSP controlled full systems.

Is NAD a European company any more? I think they are effectively Canadian now.

@nonoise ,

Trolls are so adept at dancing on the head of a pin. 

Maybe less snark, more valuable contribution?  Maybe understanding what the word troll means in the context?

again, the idea that a handful of measurements conducted by the members of one site somehow

Several pages of measurements.

Decades of scientific experiments.

Lack of scientific studies to prove otherwise, or demonstrations that have anything approaching scientific validity.

fundamental issues like "what to measure" are far from settled

Concerning DACs, interconnect cables, power cables, and to simplify, anything before the output of an amplifier, I have seen no evidence that it has not been settled.

Amplifiers and how they may interact with a speaker? There is room to explore extreme ends of products. I am not aware that the challenge that two amplifiers with low distortion, high damping, and matched frequency response withing 0.1db has been broken yet.

Speakers? There is no one that claims measurements of speakers are settled or will ever be settled.

It is fine to make claims, but it is good to have data other than your personal feeling, the feelings of others, and the marketing sheet to back it up.

One thing just struck me. As passionate as the people in this thread are that ASR is wrong, I see no effort to prove ASR wrong. You have all the tools you need. Your ears, and your systems. All you need is an impartial person to run an experiment and record the results.  You probably need someone with a more scientific bent to set up the experiment, but it is not very hard. I raise the point before. I am sure the users at ASR would be thrilled to help you set up an experiment.

I don't expect any of you to do it though. I cannot do it. It is too easy to say I am biased if I hear no difference. You are biased to find a difference.

There was a head phone amplifier reviewer on Youtube, somewhat respected, that claimed with 100% certainty he could tell two amplifiers apart. Someone challenged and he took up the challenge. I applaud his willingness to be public about the result. The result? In a blind test, he could not tell the amplifiers apart. Not at all.

NAD is effectively a Chinese company with Banking in Canada.

They have a contract manufacturer in China, like Apple, and everyone else. Do you consider Apple a Chinese company?

That settles it. We’re going out for Australian Ice Cream!

We should all expand our horizons and got out for Taro ice cream. My local Walmart of all places has it.

So @henry53 , MIEE, industrial engineering. Quick perusal indicates very little in the way of electrical engineering in that study. Light on related physics as well. I should have been more clear, but it should have been obvious.  Obviously none of us are electrical engineers or close enough to speak with authority. I would have settle for a strongly related physics degree.  I expect my PhD/MD is as relevant, and significantly more relevant on the research side. Are we all happy now?

In this instance regarding some "unknown" test. What I have said to concise and clear AMR frequently users totally useless data to draw even more useless conclusions.

You have neither proven the uselessness of ASR testing, nor have you provided alternatives. A simple question for you @henry53 , if testing of a cable by ASR, say a simple interconnect, in a typical system (nothing their systems are not made of expensive components), reveals that by all the measurements they do, there is no change, and in both cases, everything tested is well below acceptable audible limits, do you believe that cable will have no audible impact? Yes or No?

You claim totally useless data. However I note in their testing:

Noise levels: Noise is relevant, audible, and can be distracting for some. At high volumes, even low noise levels, can audible.

THD:  @djones51 noted above they are now testing down to 2 ohms impedance, and a quickly check shows many different frequencies. Apparently it is full sweep from very low power to full power or low signal level to high signal level. Many audiophiles who like tubes claim they are more linear at low signal levels. This test should cover that concern adequately.

IMD: Reading their test protocol, this is done at 32 different frequencies. Do you not agree this would be a reasonable simulation of music?  Audiophiles often write that IMD is more important, or that higher harmonics of distortion are important. Would this test not reveal all of that quickly?

Jitter:  For DACs, jitter is injected on serial cables and how well the DAC rejects jitter is measured. Jitter is also measured for all the inputs. I could probably find a thousand comments on this forum alone about the importance of low jitter. Are you claiming it is not important?

AC Harmonics:  Using very very distorted AC on inputs to DACs and amps to measure the effects. I would find a similar 1000 comments on importance of AC power on this forum. Do you not agree?

Speakers?:  Far more tests than I have seen from any publication or website on speakers. When I read the discussions that follow, all of it seems not only relevant, but all of it can be translated into physical aspects of how the speaker will sound and how it may work out in your room.  Is this not all useful?

I keep pushing the limits of my knowledge responding, but I don't see others pushing themselves to learn more.  Your comment about useless data does not appear warranted.  I have also asked you, what critical data that defines how something sounds is missing since you feel all the data they collect now is useless. Can you not answer this question?

ASR hasn't measured an AGD amp (probably too expensive). 

@fleschler , if AGD provided the amplifier on loan, I expect they would measure it.

@thecarpathian 

I had to look that up. I have never had Mochi stuffed with ice cream.  This is standard, in a tub fare in the freezer section. I was trying to find it on their website, but it is not there.

@henry99 , if you didn't have only 9 posts, all in this topic, all effectively band-handed attacks on ASR, then I may take your post seriously. However, as you do have only 9 posts, all in this topic, I see no need to take you seriously. That would create an account, solely for the purpose of attacking ASR is definitely a point of interest. Education is important if you want to understand certain topics.

What @fleschler said about Amir,

@Amir Keep your fans on ASR.  Can't hear differences in cables that measure the same=something is very wrong here.  .....   You think you are superior to nearly everyone who posts on Audiogon because your opinion is based on measurements (except when you don't find a measurable difference ala cables, tweaks, etc). 

Amir's exact words,

I have repeated over and over again that listening tests are the gold standard over measurements. 

How do we move forward if the same lies continue to be repeated?

How do we move forward if some audiophiles refuse to put their faith to the test and do a blind listening test?

I found this quite interesting and it appears the folks over at this site do quite a bit of testing. They seem to be very transparent about their test equipment, methodology and end goals in testing. They even make a statement as such.

You consider it transparent, I consider it amateur. It is interesting that you consider this transparent, but do not give the same consideration to ASR. This was my first Google hit. The difference in level of detail and depth and quality of the information is not subtle.

@jerryg123 ,

I looked over that "cable test" at Alpha Audio. I will reiterate my comment. It is very amateur. How can anyone call themselves and audiophile of any experience and not know even the most basic things about a blind test. They even have a video of them doing this blind test. They don't have a good explanation, so we work with the video and what they wrote. Apparently, all they did was listen to each cable only once, write down their notes, then gave a rating at the end. They could have put all the names into a hat and pulled them out to determine the ranking. The result would carry the same weight and validity. Based on their data, the Shunyata would have been the loudest.

@amir_asr perhaps you would want to jump in at this point, but I don't get a very strong impression these Alpha Audio guys have much idea about what they are doing. I don't have the confidence to solidly identify measurement mistakes, but some of the things they wrote have me shaking my head, this like this statement. How could any measurement they made provide any indication of material purity?

The conductance is purely indicative. It shows how pure the material is that has been used. Ricable claims to use very pure, 7N copper. That matches up pretty well with what we measure on 2 x 3 meters (we go out (+) and back (-) in the cable in this measurement). Shunyata tops that with the very purest copper. And so that is visible in this measurement.

@kota1 , posting a link to a personal report of what someone thinks they heard does not prove your point. If the reviewer was truly curious, or fully believed their conclusion, they would have gotten two DACs, one burned in, and one not, and compared them in blind test.

I will say the arrogance and condescending attitudes reflected by you @amir_asr @prof I would not take advise from any of you, nor will I ever look at the ASR site.

You can say Amir has been slightly condescending, but given his treatment, probably far less than he should be. My condescension has circled around twisting of words, false truths, and outright lies. I am very much biting my tongue. @prof on the other hand has been a complete gentleman.

Mostly because the equipment being tested is low scale and not my, well thing. I do not shop at Best Buy.

I will say one condescending thing. You may want to pick up a dictionary and learn what the word condescending means, as you seem to believe it applies to others, but not yourself.

@jerryg123 , someone on ASR spent more time evaluating their methods. The word amateur keeps repeating in my head. I will point this out to you as well @kota1 .

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/loudspeaker-cable-test-and-comparison.35712/post-1247963

The guy doing the switching is there. The two listeners discuss their findings which isn’t good methodology during the test. The switcher also had done the measurements. This isn’t even good single blind. Plus they discuss things for several minutes as cables are switched. They can see the cables being pulled out as switching is done. The first one was a white thin little cable, the next one is a big black fancy looking cable which they might have noticed even though not scrutinizing the cable as this happens. The switcher even gets involved in the discussions of what some of the cables sounds like with the test listeners. At one point even discussing what the measurements of the cable currently listened to was. This is a preposterous test. They are listening to not quite 10 minutes of music once, then talk amongst themselves for 7 to 8 minutes while cables are swapped (again in their view) before listening to the next one. And the results are random even though the author tries to spin it as meaningful.

Great quote-Every scientific genius in history was been subjected to viscous derision by the scientific dogmatists of their generation who were often laughably wrong in retrospect.

That is it though. They were scientific geniuses. You are not. Neither are all the detractors of science writing here on this topic, nor the cable vendors, nor the amp designers, nor designers of probably any of the audio equipment we buy. Those scientific geniuses and certainly all the ones from the last 50 years, all had one thing in common. Before they had their defining moment of genius, they already had a very strong theoretical background in their field of study/work. My plumber is not going to get lucky and perfect cold fusion, and my dentist is not going to cure cancer. Those advances do not happen in isolation, they happen because those geniuses studied the work of those who came before them, and to study that requires the knowledge and language to understand that prior effort. Ergo, it will be the user base of ASR who makes advances in audio, not the ones here.

Can you see now where the actual close-mindedness resides?

I will take unlikely for $800, @prof 

I had to research the Hedy Lamarr story. That is a huge leap from the website whose text you plagiarized.  Jumping between radio frequencies to prevent jamming is not "scientific genius". It was both a simple solution to a problem and it was already done manually in the early days of radio when two people communicating would decide together to change channels to avoid interference. It took me a total of 5 minutes to find this out. To think that event was necessary to have WiFi, GPS and Bluetooth is a gross reach, but you didn't write those words, so I will only partially hold you to them. She also did not do this on her own, but with someone skilled in the art.

Winchell I know well. He both had medical training and he did not develop it on his own, he developed it with a medical doctor. There is that whole building on prior knowledge. This was purely a mechanical device, a pump to replicate the operation of the heart. He never built one that went in a person, nor could it do anything but pump.

Perhaps this is the issue. You don't fundamentally understand science. Neither of the two developments you mentioned are scientific discoveries. The first is a relatively simple engineering idea, a practical solutions to problem, and if Hedy Lamarr had not been involved, it would be a non event, like the other 10's of thousands of practical ideas that people come up with every year. It is akin to intermittent wipers. I don't think we would consider that a scientific advancement would we? Winchell built a pump to replicate the pumping functions of the human heart. Not a scientific discovery, but an engineering development. He was not the first to think of this idea, and it is not clear that he even advanced the overall development. This is a medical view of the development timeline of artificial hearts:  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5358116/

The largest portion of intelligence is genetic. Book learning and experience does not make you smart, it makes you skilled. At the highest levels of "smart", recent research indicates you can only train for minimal increases in intelligence.

Those who clamor most loudly for blind testing rarely undertake such evaluations themselves.

@cleeds , I have seen 3 people most loudly clamor for blind testing in this discussion. Amir, who stated he has done many many blind tests. Prof, who has done at least several blind tests, which he described in this thread, and me, who has also done blind tests, which I noted.  How do you think I reached this spot?  I used to believe I could hear differences until it was shown to me I could not. I also did medical research and lived blind testing.

@fleschler , would it be safe to say you are not an electrical designer or electrical engineer? If so, under what authority do you make the following comment?

There is a cure for the Benchmark.  Replace the computer quality, cheap-ass regulators, power and filter caps, maybe parts of the audio board, the Op-amp, etc. with audio (much more costly) parts.  Benchmark products are only okay stock but can be great when modified.  Their HDR-1 DAC is a great example of a terrific design with mediocre execution.  It is a giant killer when modified.  

Maybe I'm doing a good thing getting you to waste your time here (as well as @crymeanaudioriver who has more time to excoriate us here as well as on ASR).  

Again with with lies @fleschler . I have now written, I think 3 times, that I do not participate on ASR, and have not in some time. If you have to resort to lying to make your point, I can only assume your position is weak, and you have internal conflict. Please see my Jung quote much earlier.

@kota1 ,

Did you even read the article you just linked on blind testing? You post reinforces what Amir has said on these pages. Trained listeners are superior to every day audiophiles in detecting anomalies. That you for reinforcing that message.  The article provided no evidence to refute blind testing.

@noske ,  "Fanaticism is always a sign of repressed doubt. ~Carl Jung"

@prof, I ceased to be amazed, many hundreds of posts ago.

My My …

“ But if you want us to stay away from this site, then don’t create a thread with such falsehoods and continue to repeat the same.“

Only a totally  self absorbed Narcissist would be so stupidly vain enough to admit to his and his familiars raison dêtre in posting on this forum.

What warped sense of morality do you have where someone defending themselves from falsehoods and lies is the bad guy?

You can assume I am not interested in your findings on audio equipment I have zero interest in. You are correct you are not a scientist nor an engineer. Nor are you a professional reviewer, you are average joe with some software and that is it.

@jerryg123 you have created a topic where you claim that the Alpha Audio cable test presents new data. There is nothing new, just the resistance of cables which was always known, and which I see being discussed many many times.  How do you reconcile your lack of knowledge in this area with your attack or Amir above?

The statement you quoted is a business decision by the vendor - time limit 30 days or so? Who pays for all the fuses that are returned within that time period, because they didn’t like them?

With a margin of likely well over 1000%, I don't think some returns or even a lot of returns is an issue. Even 50% would be totally acceptable.

Either you make a product that people wanna keep for the duration of their expected lives, or refund them if it is faulty.  Not simply because ya tried and didn't like - that is such an expensive business decision whereby the consumer takes on the risks of other consumers before him who were didn't like the fuse.

Amazon's return rate I think is close to 20%.

@crymeanaudioriver I am not the one who claims to be an expert. Nor do I purport to be an expert with a web site named Audio Science Review. I simply shared information from the those Dutch fellas. 

Except @jerryg123 , you wrote this title, "Everything matter in the audio chain. Tests prove it!"  which was your personal declaration. If you are not an expert, how do you feel qualified to make this declaration?