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

@crymeanaudioriver 

 

Indeed.  I'm always conscious that there are other people reading who are more open-minded.

A lot of the rancor comes, as I mentioned, from the problem that some of us "don't know what we don't know."   And then that ignorance is projected.

So often one sees an appeal to "But this is mysterious, WE don't know the answers to this" or "Science doesn't know everything, and Science doesn't have the answer for the phenomenon I'm describing!"    Which is often just another way of saying "I'm ignorant of the science on this subject" and then projecting that ignorance on to science or anyone else who is aware of the science.

There certainly are jerks on all sides of an issue.  But in terms of the basic approach, the "objectivist/ASR-type member" is starting with acknowledging the inherent limitations and fallibility of our human condition.  And then going on to ask "ok, how can we account for fallibility in our method of inquiry?"  It's a personal acknowledgement of fallibility as it is a general acknowledgement about our species. "I Could Be Wrong" is the fundamental starting point of the inquiry.

On the other hand, we have folks who are Absolutely Certain of the reliability of their perception.  It's unshakable - and if you try to bring any objective or control methods to the claim, those methods will be faulted, never that individual's belief.

And since this is essentially a religious-faith-like stance of personal dogmatism, it tends to lead to rancor.  The "belief and confidence in what I hear" is wrapped up in someone's view of themselves, and they think it can't be challenged lest the whole thing fall like a house of cards (since they won't accept the "way out" offered by more objective inquiry).  Therefore there isn't much else left to say "I heard it, that's that" and the only recourse is ultimately feelings of insult "how dare you try to tell me I didn't hear what I KNOW I heard!" and so we get lots of ad hominem.

As I've said, this Purely Subjective approach leaves no way to ever adjudicate truth claims about audio gear.  If the idea is that our perception is the Ultimate Arbitor, then in the very same setting evaluating equipment, audiophile A can say "I heard a difference between these cables" which is supposed to mean 'therefore there is a change in the signal.'  But if audiophile B is there using precisely the same method and reports "I don't hear any difference" then that should stand as a refutation of the first audiophile's claim.  But it never is, because audiophile A will always say "Sorry, I'm not wrong, it looks like your hearing just isn't as acute as mine because I know I hear the difference!"    It's a completely unfalsifiable method in this sense.

And the problem with unfalsifiable claims which resort to ad hoc reasoning like this is that they are consistent with any observation (I hear a difference, if someone else does it confirms my claim, if they don't, they simply can't hear the difference), and hence do not predict any observation.

Now, nobody HAS to give a damn about any of this.  No audiophile has to be a consistent thinker, or aware of all the science, or do any scientific or rigorous inquiry AT ALL when choosing gear.  But the issue is that people will inevitably make claims of truth from their experience, with unshakable conviction, and that's where we end up in this mess.

Now the posters are going after OldHvyMec for suggesting/stating that equipment always Breaks-in and mostly because he had the audacity to state that cable also breaks-in/burns-in.

 

How DARE they actually put some critical thinking to those claims and ask for evidence! Why don’t the many members there with technical knowledge and experience with electronics just flat out accept whatever OldHvyMec claims, even if it contradicts their own experience and knowledge of technical theory? Some anonymous poster making dubious technical claims ought to trump all that and they should bypass any demands for evidence out of deference to this new poster!

 

How dare they!  So mean and irrational of them!

 

 

First, welcome to Audiogon Amir!

I’m a long time Audigon Forum member, but have been a prolix poster on ASR as well for years :-)

It’s sad to see the "welcome" you’ve been given by *some* members here.

 

To the rest of the crowd:

I find it ironic that a lot of the criticism is often couched in terms of Amir’s attempt to inform as being just a flexing of ego.

What I see actually happening is some here can’t get past their own ego to acknowledge that..".hey...maybe Amir DOES know more about these subjects than I do."

But the ’subjective’ paradigm allows anyone to feel they are the personal experts of a sort: "Oh, some guy with actual ’expert’ knowledge in electronics is telling me that’s not how the gear works? Well I don’t have to listen to him! You see, I have my OWN experience hearing things, so I KNOW these products work like they are promoted to work."

This is like a perfect firewall to ignoring any expert testimony or information you want to ignore. As has been seen all over this thread. This "My Ears Don’t Lie" stance produces the audio equivalent of Dunning Kruger and is hard to penetrate.

Now, I don’t see that everyone here is that intractable. But it certainly is software running through many of these attacks on Amir.

So, as an Audiogon forum member (and member of other "subjective-oriented" sites) AND a long time ASR member, I’ll give my 2 cents on the ASR forum:

1. They do not reflexively hound away anyone with different opinions. Generally, the theme there is that if you are making claims about equipment, they would like to see something beyond "I’m Sure I Heard It." So technically plausible explanations, evidence in the form of measurements to understand what’s going on, or at least if the claim is in the technically disputable realm, evidence from controlled testing (blinded) that one can reliably detect the sonic differences claimed.

Nothing wrong at all with that as the remit of that forum. If you don’t your claims being put to such scrutiny, you don’t need to visit that forum.

 

2. That said, the general atmosphere is fairly "open" in terms of discussions. For an "objective based" forum it’s pretty relaxed. So long as you can be civil and are willing to engage honestly instead of dismissively, you can voice any opinion. For instance, I have continually argued for why I still value subjective descriptions in audio, why I value exchanging notes with other audiophiles, why I still value some subjective reviews. There is something of an overall allergy to such stuff at ASR I will admit, which is one reason I find myself defending it. BUT...again...there hasn’t been a hint of running me off the forum. I’ve engaged in plenty of great discussions.

3. While everyone will have some biases operating, I find Amir to generally be a straight-shooter. He has given thumbs up to a number of products one might predict he’d disparage, even including recommending some tiny ridiculously expensive Wilson TuneTOT speakers - where Wilson is typically the whipping-boy of most "objectivists" because they tend to measure wonky.

 

4. Personally I love that there is a forum where I can get more reliable, objective information about audio products. Do I have make my own choices some rote following of whatever I read at ASR? Not at all. But it’s up to me, and I’m so glad for the information avaialble on that site. I really think ASR is one of the most important, impactful audio web sites at this time. The fact Amir INCLUDES testing of all sorts of controversial audio-tweak stuff - expensive digital cables etc - is a HUGE bonus for those who want to spend their money advisedly, rather than being at the mercy of just manufacturer claims or audiophile anecdotes.

 

5. That said, I still value places like the Audiogon forum where I can indulge in exchanging notes on the subjective nature of the hobby - describing "what THIS product sounds like." I personally scale my confidence levels in these descriptions to the plausibility of the claims (e.g.if an Agon member describes his audition of two different speakers, I’m all ears. If he describes the difference his new $1,000 USB cable made...not so much).

 

6. Along the lines above: the very nature of the ASR site encourages a trend-line towards rating certain types of products higher than others, and lauding products that are aligning with similar technical goals - for instance speakers that align more with the Toole/Olive/Harman Kardon research, amps that measure super low SINAD/distortion etc. This is TOTALLY understandable. However, it also means that many there are not interested in some of the gear I’m interested in. So I still get value out of sites like Audiogon where I can exchange notes with people interested in gear that wouldn’t really be on ASR’s radar or focus.

 

@prof I was only pointing out a prior Audiogon contributor who I found interesting who has been an avid ASR contributor but now is ridiculed and deemed unworthy of remaining because he said something different

 

I find that characterization quite misleading.  It isn't just because "he said something different" it's that he's making dubious yet-very-confident claims, and providing poor arguments for those claims!

OldHvyMec is frankly being treated mostly with kid-gloves in that thread!  Almost all (or all) the replies are quite civil and are simply pointing out the flaws in his argument.  One person asked OldHvyMec if he's sure he'll be happy at the ASR forum, but I didn't see a single person saying he was "unworthy of remaining."

 

(which most manufacturers of quality audio equipment believe is true, and I believe true of inexpensive equipment as well). Tell me a speaker or cartridge, very mechanical devices, don’t break-in.

The question is always "are the changes audible?"   There are good arguments, it seems, for why even speaker break in is over-hyped (e.g. most of the breaking in of driver surrounds etc typically occur rapidly, not over great lengths of time, though there seem to be *some* data suggesting *some* drivers can take longer to break in.  But this hardly supports the common audiophile assumption that virtually every speaker sounds different after some extended break in period.

As for the other mechanical devices, I'm not sufficiently expert myself to rule it out, but do you have any measurements showing changes in the signal after time? 

If it's based only on the "I Swear I Heard A Difference" method of vetting such "break in" that's not too compelling.  I've seen audiophiles literally claim everything breaks in sonically, even their AV racks!  

And remember OldHvyMec was making claims about cables.

As to cartridge break-in, just admit you know nothing concerning vinyl playback.

Well, no...I won’t say I "know nothing", thank you very much. I will say I’m far from an expert and try not to make strong claims that aren't backed up with good evidence.

But, that’s me.

Am I to just fall to my knees and accept your claims as received wisdom? Or is it ok with you if I keep my critical faculties engaged?

You followed up with a bunch of claims about break in, all based on what you claim to hear. Perhaps you did hear break in. But then audiophiles believe they can hear everything under the sun - imagination and listener bias is, sorry, a fact of life and I see no reason to pretend it isn’t a variable. So, again, given I have seen many people with technical knowledge refute claims about break in, if an audiophile is going to claim break in I’ll wait for stronger evidence, in the form of measurements (or blind listening tests). You can do you, I can do me.

 

fleschler

How do you determine the truth of claims, in your method?

Let's say a manufacturer makes claims about an expensive new digital cable.

Your ultimate method of adjudicating that claim, as far as I can see, is whether you listen and  hear a difference from another cable, or not.

So let's say Audiophile "A" listens and says "I hear an improvement in the sound" and audiophile "B" listens to the SAME set up and concludes "sorry, there is no difference in the sound."

Who is right?  They've both used precisely the same method yet arrived at contrary conclusions.

Is the audiophile who claims to hear a difference ALWAYS in the right?

 

My listening tests in reviews is provided on "as is" basis. I do them because if I didn't, I would get more complaints.  "Oh, he doesn't listen."  I have tried to make more sense out of them by developing the EQ technique.  The outcome there has been quite positive with many trying my EQ profiles and liking them over stock performance.  If folks want to ignore them -- and many do -- it is no skin of my nose.  I perform them because I am curious myself how the measurements translate into sound and a form of listening training.

 

That all makes sense to me.  Given the range of audiophile viewpoints you can't please everyone.  If you don't listen, you'll get complaints about that.  If you do listen, you'll get complaints that you aren't using a rigorous enough protocol.  If you use a rigorous blind protocol, you'll get pushback from the anti-blind-test faction who think blind tests obscure results and you should have listened "in relaxed sighted conditions, like a normal audiophile."

Personally, I think that yeah, blind listening to speakers would hue most consistently to the ASR remit.  But your compromise of  "here are my impressions take them or leave them" seems a reasonable compromise.

 

Having done various blind tests over the years, it's a very powerful lesson.  It's too bad many audiophiles haven't experienced their 'sighted' impressions dissolving away when they can't use their knowledge of which piece of gear is actually playing.   There's nothing that sinks in like an actual experience.

(And many audiophiles see blind testing as almost synonymous with "detecting no sonic differences."  Where in fact plenty of differences have been detected in blind tests for various things.  That is of course one way various codecs were arrived at.  And I've had some positive results for identifying differences in my own blind tests).

 

 

I could (and should) learn a thing or two from him on how to engage the absolutists and dogmatics one encounters along the way.

The amount of "projection" in this thread is really something ;-)

 

the assumption that there is a fundamentally rational, measurable basis for emotional responses to an experience (like listening to music) is flawed.

 

Scientists study human preferences all the time. Social and cognitive sciences for instance.  General trends in preferences really can be quantified.

That doesn't mean anyone has to personally care, of course.

 

the act of measuring gear is not a threat or a problem for anybody.

It shouldn't be.  But in a certain audiophile paradigm - My Ears Do Not Lie! - people do feel threatened and triggered if someone else appeals to measurements to adjudicate their claims.   The irony is that it is so often claimed it's the "objectivists" who are the dogmatists, when it's often the Golden Ears who are most unmoving and vitriolic in their beliefs.  As quite a few posts in this thread attest.

 

where i disagree is when people insist that i shouldn't trust my senses when i am determining whether a piece of equipment is good for my system.  reviewers with a subjective bent don't bother me at all, for the same reason - seems blandly obvious that what sounds good in john darko's room might sound like junk in mine. how do i figure it out? i buy the thing and return (or sell it) if it sucks!

I think we always need to keep in mind specific claims about gear.  Speakers, for instance, I think Amir would see "good measurements" - as determined by all sorts of research about what tends to sound good to a majority of people - is just good knowledge to have, and a good starting point.  It doesn't say a speaker will absolutely work for you in your room, but if you have the measurements and you know the character/size of your room and where you'll be placing the speakers, the measurements can indicate what type of problems you might encounter...or not.

A "well designed" speaker will tend to be easier to sit in more rooms than one that is less "well designed" and could be more finicky.  It's not Absolute Knowledge of course, but it's up to any individual what to do with it.  Some ASR members have a good enough grasp of the measurements and their room to be confident in buying based on measurements...and they have successfully done so.  Other audiophiles may be less knowledgeable or experienced understanding the technical stuff, or even if they do understand it, may still feel they always want to audition a speaker first.  (I'm in that camp).  So there is no "dogma" being enforced about this.  It's just offering knowledge for those who can or want to use it.

Then there are all the dubious claims in the audiophile world - e.g. expensive USB cables, switchers and on and on.  In this case the debate isn't so much about "choice" as to "whether the device actually does what it's claimed to do." 

Of course the Golden Ear approach is to just listen and decide for yourself.  Nobody is putting a stop to that.  But for those who want more reliable information - the type of tests and measurements Amir provides is often very enlightening, and helps many people make advised decisions as to where to spend their money.

So a Golden Ear may say "I'm happy I spent $2,000 on my new USB cable, because I think it made a difference" whereas I and many others will look to the plausibility of such claims, as explained by experts.  I find the evidence Amir provides in many of his reviews - the combination of technical theory with the tests in support of the conclusions - to be much more cogent than audiophile anecdotes, especially when it comes to the tweakier side of the hobby.

YMMV...

 

 

 

I want to thank the Audiogon moderator for permitting this forum to continue and expose the narrowmindedness of the "objectivist" measurement is the gold standard for determining audio equipment quality. 

Except it hasn't really worked out that way.  Kind of the reverse if anything.

I mean...you think Your Ears are the ultimate arbiter for sonic quality, right?

You'll believe what Your Ears tell you, whatever objective evidence Amir might bring against the plausibility of your belief.  Or, am I wrong about that?

 

The ASR site/Amir has not extended a mutual openness to permitting our members from participating on their rebuttal forum or their site. 

That's quite a spin.

Another way of seeing it:  Generally speaking, Amir does not care for his forum to be a place simply to gripe about other audio sites.  He or the moderators have closed a number of such threads once they seem to have gone down that route.

He'd rather the conversations be about audio, vetting claims made for equipment,  vs griping about people in other forums.  That certainly doesn't mean it doesn't happen.  But generally speaking, in the context of the fact everyone including Amir is fallible, he's often trying to take the higher road in that regard.  (And unfortunately  some folks will unfairly take Amir's tests and technical claims as threats or insults to their own beliefs, and just impute ill will or dogmatism.  That happened in this thread too).

On the other hand, you are happy to see a thread here that continues to berate the Amir and the ASR crowd.

Personally I'm happy to see this thread continue insofar as some fruitful dialogue can happen among some of us.  But I don't think the very fact this thread is continuing is necessarily taking the higher road.  "Amir shut down griping about us, but we didn't shut down griping about them!  Hurray for us!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

td_dayton,

Thanks, and your points are well taken.

As I mentioned in my first post in this thread, I am thankful for the approach and information available at ASR, which doesn't mean I share precisely the same goals in terms of my own equipment purchases.

For instance, I love the Devore O/96 speakers.   When they came out there was quite a vitriolic comment thread in Stereophile with some self-claimed experts declaring the design ridiculous and incompetent "nobody who knew what he was doing would match that size woofer with that tweeter" etc.

And yet I found, like so many others, that the O/96 was one of the most special, beguiling sounding speakers I've ever heard!  So given there is a sort of "direction" to what is evaluated as "good" or "bad" design on ASR (again, well justified IF you adopt the underlying goals), that kind of product mostly won't be on the radar there, and indeed the Devore speakers have been mocked by some there.  In that sense, ASR isn't the place where I would likely have been led to auditioning those speakers.   It was the subjective reviews, and listening reports from other audiophiles that got me interested, and I found the general take to be bang on when I heard those speakers.

This is one example for why I have often defended the usefulness FOR ME (and many other audiophiles) of subjective reports about some audio gear on the ASR site. Exchanging subjective impressions is not as reliable information per se as objective measurements, especially when you have a specific goal for the measurements (correlated to the sound you want).    But, as I argue, that doesn't make them completely useless or always inaccurate. 

And I find the case interesting in regard to the research on speaker design (Toole/Olive/Harman Kardon etc).  The research suggests that, in the blind tests, I would be most likely to prefer Revel speakers over the Devore, as the Revels are successfully designed to hit the "preference" target that arose out of blind testing.

I completely accept that research.  I think that if I were to go to the Harman Kardon facilities and engage in blind tests, it would be safer to bet my money I'd select the Revel speakers under those conditions.

So what do I do with the fact that I actually did audition a few Revel speakers (which were very competent sounding as predicted) and yet still heavily preferred the Devore?   Well, it could be that I happen to be one of the outliers, and even in blind testing I'd select the Devores.  Less likely, but possible. 

My own decision would be to purchase the Devores over the Revel based on my auditions.  This is because, in "sighted" auditions even IF there are other non-audio factors influencing my perception of the Devores being more engaging, those are the conditions under which I'll be listening to the speakers.  If there are other factors influencing my perception of the sound (e.g. the looks), fine, I'll take 'em because it's sure working to keep me engaged!   Plus, this approach has led to plenty of satisfying purchases over the years, and I just really, really enjoy listening to all sorts of different loudspeakers, so I could never be one of the "order it just on measurements" folks.   But I totally GET that an emphasis on measurements work for some other people.  (AND, btw, over at ASR most members would prefer to hear a speaker before purchasing.  Even when you've narrowed the field down to several "good measuring speakers" there's still enough variation to bring in personal preference).

 

 

fleschler

If it hasn't been clear: my own approach is mostly like yours.  I always want to hear

gear for myself, rather than rely on measurements.  I think that is for me the most reliable method for getting satisfaction.

But, again for myself, I'd put things like tube amps and speakers in that category.

With so many manufacturers of cables, tweaks etc vying for my time and money, I find the information from places like ASR help inform my choices as to what is most likely worthwhile or not.

 

 

invalid,

blind testing is not the answer, you might pick out a speaker in blind testing and hate it once you listen to it for a while in your room.

That's conjecture though.  How often has that claim been born out?

Again, knowledge is power, and if you understand enough about speaker measurements and your room, there is some level of predictive power about the sound. 

Further, speaker design has actually been advancing due to all the blind testing research that identified what type of resonances and anomalies we tend to identify as unnatural or sounding poor.  More and more companies are using this information in their design, even purchase Klippel Analyser Systems (like Amir uses - Magico for instance now uses the Klippel and designs with goals similar to that targets that arose out of the scientific research.

KEF has had enormous success with their designs, especially as they also have been designing their speakers ever closer to the "best practice measurements" goals that arose from blind-research.  So there really is a through-line from the studies to what many people will hear as Good Sound.  It doesn't necessarily predict what any particular individual will choose, but it's clearly been helpful.

 

Like I said before look what blind taste tests gave us the new coke, where is that product now?

A single such instance isn't an argument against the usefulness of blind testing.

That said, I think the New Coke Problem could be raised against the type of blind tests used at, say, the Harman Kardon facilities - that is, do some speakers sound better in the shorter time period quick-switching scenario of such tests, but don't necessarily predict long time satisfaction?  I think that's a possible flaw.  But it might actually have been addressed, I can't remember at the moment.  And it also seems fairly doubtful to me.

But to grant the proposition that people prefer X speakers in blind tests is useful does NOT mean it therefore predicts customer satisfaction per se.  Clearly plenty of audiophiles have found satisfaction with a wide variety of speaker designs over the years.  All sorts of confounding factors occur once you are in to the real world.

 

 

 

@axo1989

 

All of this stuff provides a wealth of information about speaker behaviour and performance and likely does tells us how they will sound. Except we as humans can’t integrate all of that meaningfully to get all the way there in terms of predictive sonics, so often we have surprises when we listen.

Yes, even very experienced people can be surprised. John Atkinson, as experienced as anyone, often enough notes things like "this measurement looks bad, but surprisingly it was not noticeable in most program material."

In terms of the usefulness of measurements for any particular individual, there are so many variables.

For instance, a real by-the-measurements buyer may be quite satisfied with his "blind" purchase for any number of reasons. Maybe there were subtle differences between that and another speaker, but he decides he doesn’t care that much. Or perhaps he is simply satisfied that the measurements show it to be an accurate speaker and "whatever the source sounds like, it sounds like." So it can be a sort of plug-and-play purchase.

Other people (like me) may be really focused on certain aspects we really are seeking and take notice of. I don’t mean by that being more of a Golden Ear, but simply slightly different taste and goals. If you ask some at the ASR forum "what does your system sound like?" I wouldn’t be surprised to be greeted by numerous shrugs. "Accurate. It doesn’t really sound like anything. I don’t want my system to sound like anything, I just want it to pass along the source accurately and that’s mostly what it does."

So there is at least a sense, in this approach, in which one’s system "doesn’t have a ’sound.’" But if you are someone like me, I will immediately notice the particular "sound" of that person’s system, because I tend to be "chasing a type of sound."

I’m comparing the sound of systems both to live voices and instruments and against different sound systems, and I’m nudging my sound to where I want it. So I’m always aware of "how a system sounds" and don’t just treat it as if "accurate to the signal" was the last word about a system. There will be some in the mostly-measurements crowd who’d dismiss some speakers because they clearly depart in certain ways from "The Goal Of Speaker Design" as they see it. They may even have heard the speaker and declared it "terrible, just like it measures!" Except they may not care that the speaker is doing something I and others might find to be very compelling because of (or in spite of) it’s wonky design. That’s why I can’t just go by the criteria and reports of measurements-or-bust audiophiles. It’s not that I have better ears, it’s just that I may be listening for something they care less about.

One also sees a form of justification at places like ASR that learning more about audio, and then seeking and obtaining "better/more accurate equipment" is a way off the "audiophile merry-go-round" where you are just throwing spaghetti at the wall, hoping to see what sticks, in a despairing viscous circle in which you don’t know how to make yourself happy. Some number of ASR members are sort of escapees from this previous audiophile life. And I completely understand that point of view.

But of course the satisfaction with gear is far more centered on the mindset of any individual than it is on the gear. What’s another way of "getting off the audiophile merry-go-round of dissatisfaction?" Well, you could just decide to be less picky. Like most of the world who are not obsessed with the gear. That too will get you off the merry-go-round. So it’s not the gear, it’s the individual. Some "subjectivist" audiophiles will get wrapped up in endless tweaks (which is fine!), some "objectivists" may be more compelled by measurements yet spend their time reading about SINAD measurements, or fiddling with all sorts of gear, measuring it etc. Just another way of obsessing :-)

Further, while the get-off-the-merry-go-round-using-accurate-gear folks may see the alternative as some form of despair and inevitable recipe for dissatisfaction,

if you look at the "subjectivist oriented" audiophiles most seem like they are having a ball, and plenty of them have actually owned speakers or gear they fell in love with, and kept it for long periods, decades even.

So there is some self-confirming rationalization going on at "both ends" of the conversation. It doesn’t mean there isn’t some truth, but good to always look beyond the rationalization to notice how the facts support it or not.

 

tantejuut

 

Don’t tell me what I hear or can’t hear, based on "whatever".

So if an audiologist explains that you, like most humans, can't hear frequencies well above 20 kHz, are you going to dispute that?

If you had an audiogram and the audiologist explains you've lost some hearing at certain frequencies, and you can't hear over 15 kHZ (or whatever the results are)...would you object "Who are YOU mr. 'expert' to try to tell ME what I can hear or not??"

Can I presume you wouldn't be that obdurate?

The question is, then, why your back is so up if someone with relevant technical knowledge tries to impart some of that knowledge (with both theory and tests demonstrating the theory)?

 

Some people don’t like exploration and discussion.

That's an ironic statement following your saying you don't want anyone telling you what you can and can't hear 'based on whatever.'   THAT sounds like someone not open to learning.

Has it crossed your mind that maybe...just as your audiologist is informed about how human hearing works...Amir may actually be right about many of these things?

 

Don't let your ego get in the way of possibly learning something.

 

 

I just revisited another older thread on ASR where someone posted the measurements of the Joseph Audio Pulsar speakers.

The general response to the measurements by the ASR crowd in that thread was "meh, not bad, not great, look at these problems...over-priced."

This is similar to the response to the Devore speakers I mentioned earlier.

If I’d used enthusiasms of the ASR members as my guide to speakers there’s no reason I ever would have pursued either the Devore or Joseph speakers. (And ended up with Genelec or KEF etc lauded in that forum).   And yet after a huge speaker audition binge they stood out head and shoulders as my favorite. I found each to be very special in their own way. And in fact I found the descriptions in subjective reviews absolutely NAILED the sonic characteristics I heard in those speakers. Which, again, is why I still can find worth in subjective reports not just measurements.

Keep in mind, that above is not to say "therefore measurements aren’t useful or don’t tell you anything" or that the ASR members were wrong in interpreting issues in the measurements that would be audible. But rather, there is the wider context about our individual goals and tastes.

 

 

Stop feeding the ASR Trolls. 🧌🧌🧌🧌🧌 I know they like to eat 🪱 but please stop. Let it die. Doctor Dick er Cyndyment.

Sure, people dare voice views you don't share and they must be ignored and called "trolls."

And yet it's the ASR folks are called closed minded and "dogmatists."

Oh the ironing....

 

rudyb

 

People may hear a difference between power cords, even though it can’t be measured. So what? If someone likes it more, than that’s a given.

That confuses the issue.  You've just assumed that people ARE hearing real sonic differences between power cords.  But that is under dispute for good reason.  It's a doubtful proposition based on how power cords/electricity/most audio gear actually works.  Most electronic engineers - the ones who are not trying to sell you those products - will explain that.  And the few who DO believe inevitably have only anecdotes for the claim.

Why does this matter?

It matters to anyone who cares about the truth, and who wants to understand how gear actually works.   Why in the world wouldn't that be worthwhile?  Knowing how things work helps an engineer meet his design goals without unnecessary rabbit holes.  Knowing what type of gear or tweak is likely to make a sonic difference helps someone spend their money more wisely.   I am VERY happy to have the information being made available by folks like Amir (and others over the years).

None of this forces anyone to care.  You don't have to avail yourself of such information.  No problem.  But there are good reasons other people have for wanting to know whether things like power cords actually alter the music signals.

And to get to the bottom of such issues, you have to account for common bias effects in the process.

 

Scientific measurements can deduct a certain device measures better than another, and listening tests can deduct a person likes a certain sound more than another. These are two entirely different things, and both can live perfectly together.

Saying objective data and subjective impressions are entirely different things is like a diabetic saying "Look, the way I may be feeling, tired, peeing a lot etc is one thing.  Measurements of blood sugar is another.  These are entirely different things!"

Well...if you want to remain in ignorance about the correspondence between your measured blood sugar and your symptoms that's up to you.  But, no, they are not entirely different things.  The correlation between blood sugar measurements and diabetes/subjective symptoms, has been studied.

Likewise, there has been plenty of study correlating measurements of sound to their subjective effects for most people.  If that weren't the case we wouldn't have stereo, surround sound, audio codecs, reverb and other plug-ins for professional sound etc.  And the subjective effects of various measurable parameters in loudspeaker designs have been studied.   As have human hearing thresholds in regards to levels of signals or distortions we can hear.

 

Your thread on ASR was closed. Who has the open mind again?

 

It was closed because Amir prefers his site to be about audio gear discussions rather than skirmishes over different web sites.  He'd prefer that the emphasis NOT be on attacking other web sites,  including audiogon.  Funny you are trying to spin that as close minded or dogmatic, while people here continue to attack ASR.

He's not shutting down discussions between "subjectivists" and "objectivists" on ASR: there are tons of threads on the subject, even stickied threads that are endless debates. 

So, no, sorry that spin doesn't work.

The issue is whether someone is actually open to arguments and evidence for another position, and it's clear that some here are dismissing Amir with a dogmatic foot-stomping "I Don't Have To Listen To You" attitude.

Amir is open to any claim about audio gear; he will just ask what type of evidence you have for the claim and examine it.  If it's just yet another "I Can Hear Things You Can't Measure" claim, then he's utterly right to be skeptical and frankly you can't do anything with such faith-like claims anyway.

 

 

Just because we my friend did not conduct a blind test or measure the differences doesn’t mean the results don’t exist.

Please be careful about using strawmen.

REMEMBER I wrote: This is not a claim that ’therefore you and he were not hearing any difference.’ It is merely pointing out that just believing it, and claiming it, doesn’t advance the conversation at all.

 

That’s the Amir way of things, if it doesn’t measure, it doesn’t exist.

No, his way of things is that if it’s audible it’s likely measurable. And if you can’t demonstrate something measurable, or at least hearing under conditions controlling for bias, then the good evidence is lacking for the claim. That’s a far more careful and reasonable view than the way you just expressed it.

The before and after were SO extraordinarily different, anyone who has good hearing could tell.

 

And yet...your engineer friend, strangely, didn’t have the impulse to do any engineering - e.g. measuring to find out what explains the obvious difference the cable made. Maybe he didn’t want to. But if that’s the fact, once again we are left with no more evidence than "I’m Sure I Heard It."

I have in fact tried a variety of expensive AC cables, Shunyata for instance.  With one of the cables I could swear it obviously changed the sound of my system - "darker" and "more lush."  I didn't even know if I still liked the sound of the system with that AC cable.   But I also knew, despite my quite strong subjective impression, that we can fool ourselves.  So an engineer family member helped me do a blind test between the Shunyata against the standard $15 AC cable.  The result, once I didn't KNOW which cable I was listening to, was no sonic difference.  There was no "darkening" or "more lushness" in the sound to indicate one sounded different than the other.

This can be humbling stuff, and a real lesson about just how strong imagined subjective impressions of sound can be.   Most audiophiles haven't had that experience, but it would be nice if more did.

 

unless you think he and I and our friends who now enjoy his system are fools and self-delusional,

Again, this is a strawman. Falling to sighted bias doesn’t make anyone a "fool" it makes them human. As I said anyone, no matter the training, is vulnerable to imagining differences.

It’s fairly amazing how this fact about human nature just doesn’t seem to ever land for some folks.

It may be an ego-bruiser to accept "maybe I was actually wrong, maybe I DID imagine a difference." But sometimes it takes putting aside pride to learn something.

 

fleschler, please understand I don’t mean to imply any hard feelings or claim I’m Absolutely Right about all these issues. I’m just trying to rationally defend a certain viewpoint. You and I share much more in common regarding audio than this little disagreement. Cheers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

fleschler,

He was an electrical engineer for 30+ years. He used Pangea power cords on his equipment. The sound was not good. Bass frequencies were a mess. The reproduction of the frequency range was very ragged with some frequencies standing out and some recessed. Hearing a bass played on his system was awful.

I lent him an Empress ($300) 7 year old GroverHuffman power cable for his amp. He was blown away. The bass started to sound coherent. He still had this spacey sound, undefined highs.

 

As I wrote: Most electronic engineers - the ones who are not trying to sell you those products - will explain that. And the few who DO believe inevitably have only anecdotes for the claim.

It is zero surprise that you’ve just provided another anecdote...no supporting evidence.

Please keep in mind that just "being an engineer" doesn’t guard anyone against the influences of sighted bias. Just as "being a scientist" doesn’t stop any scientist from experiencing bias effects. That’s why it’s the METHOD that is important and reliable, not "the person." Every scientist who makes a claim has to provide objective evidence that can be vetted.   "Take my word for it, I'm a scientist" won’t do.

It’s the same in audio. An engineer who is using an unreliable method like sighted listening is JUST as fallible as anyone else and can hear things that aren’t there.

Sorry...that’s just how humans work.

This is not a claim that ’therefore you and he were not hearing any difference.’ It is merely pointing out that just believing it, and claiming it, doesn’t advance the conversation at all.

You say that there were very clear changes in frequency response, both highs and bass. What you are describing is easily measurable. Did your engineer friend measure these differences in the musical signal? If so, that would be truly novel data. But the fact no such data has been presented...ever!...as far as I’m aware, is a Big Red Flag in terms of the substance of such claims.

 

@juanmanuelfangioii  what's up with the attempts to censor?

 

Indeed.  Things are getting weird.

I learned long ago not to engage ASR minions. You’re basically conversing with pre-programmed robots

 

This is the deep irony/hypocrisy that almost always arises in these threads.

For the most part people making the "ASR-type case" are trying to offer a reasoned case with civility.  The ad hominem and insults, like above, tends to come from the "anti-objective" side...who then go on to blame the "objectivists" for being the dogmatic thread-crappers.

And then also claim it's the objectivists who are close minded hive-thinkers.

This is why I mentioned earlier, the level of "projection" one sees in these threads is often quite amazing.

 

@axo1989 

I can see your point of view regarding ASR. 

I don't know if you have been a member long enough to have seen some of my skirmishes with Amir and crew.   One got a bit crazy.  But for me it's always water-under-the-bridge.

@moto_man

 

As cryneanaudioriver pointed out: you really left science and engineering behind in your post because you have simply assumed (e.g. in the case of your Shunyata cable) that your perception is SO reliable that you just CAN’T be wrong, and that therefore if no technical theory or measurement can validate "What You Hear" then it MUST be tests that are wrong, not...ever....you!

THAT is the fundamental problem underlying most of the subjectivist/objectivist debate. The Utter Certainty many have in their own perception...which flies in the face of all we know and has been studied about the fallibility and liabilities of human bias and perception.

It seems either a case of flat out refusal to learn this due to maybe some ego-protection mechanism, because people wrongly feel they are being personally insulted if it’s dare suggested they are "hearing things." Or it’s a case of some people just not-knowing-what-they-don’t-know and so they just won’t accept any informed testimony that contradicts their self belief.

Which is too bad.

My son was involved in a large study for a peanut allergy treatment. It was double-blinded - neither we nor the researchers knew who was on the actual treatment or the placebo. This is STANDARD in such trials because of the well known influence of bias - people who know they are getting the treatment will often report it made them better (even if it didn’t) and visa versa. Wouldn’t it be strange for my son to have objected "How dare you insult me by suggesting I may be prone to imagining anything! I demand that you unblind this study. I can trust myself, why can’t you?"

That would just be a flat out misunderstanding of the nature of human bias, right?

And yet this is pretty much what one sees among many here: a flat rejection of the proposition they may actually be imagining differences, and a rejection of any way of coming to that conclusion. It’s a one way street: I KNOW I hear the difference, so the only answer I’m looking for is one that affirms that belief!

As I mentioned earlier:  I also felt very strongly I heard an "obvious" difference with a Shunyata cable in my system.  But I was open to the possibility of listener bias as well.  So I did a blind shoot out and when I didn't know which cable was which, there was NO detectable difference - my guesses were completely random.

Saved me a lot of money :-)

It's too bad more audiophiles haven't had such experiences.  It's an eye-opener.

it is not about expertise nor a defensive reaction to scientific explanations. If I hear more detail, I hear more detail. Simple as that.

 

^^^^

You literally contradicted yourself within your first sentence.  Your posts really do exemplify precisely the problem here.

So tantejuut, is it your contention that, unlike the rest of the human species, you are totally immune from perceptual bias effects?  That you just couldn't be wrong in what you perceive when you "hear" something?

 

 

@tantejuut

 

The problem I have is people telling me what I can not hear.

 

Again: do you have a problem with scientists who study human biology telling you what is or isn’t possible? The reason, for instance, scientists have sent up the Web telescope is to see things that they KNOW can not be seen from earth with the naked eye. Wouldn’t it be strange for someone to say "they don’t have to do that! They can’t tell ME what I can see or not!"

???

Therefore: Why are you not open to a suitable expert on a subject (in which you are not expert) explaining what you may, or may not, be able to hear? This stuff really has been studied! Just as the limits of human hearing in regards to frequency response has been studied, so have thresholds for distortion levels, dynamic range etc.

 

And that really does have consequences when we are talking about what type of distortions are likely in cables and how audible they are likely to be or not.

 

If I hear differences in cables, I want to learn what is happening. If other people tell me that it is impossible and I am delusional, I find that not the right attitude for investigating the parameters for what is causing that effect. (geometry, dielectrics, purity, etc...).

 

But then you really DON’T want to learn what is happening. That is:you are blocking off any answer you don’t like, especially one that would conclude you are wrong in what you thought you heard.

There are people who have good knowledge of electronics - what type of distortions are plausible or not, how to measure it, and also have good knowledge of the thresholds of audible distortion. Amir is one of them, but there are numerous others.

If you REALLY care about "learning what is going on" it may indeed entail that real audible differences are occurring in your cables. But it also MAY be the case no audible differences are occurring, for very well known technical reasons, and you REALLY MIGHT be mistaken in your perception. If you don’t allow for the latter possibility - one VERY well documented in science - then you really aren’t approaching this with an open mind keen to learn the truth.

@moto_man 

 

The thing was, your post started off fine with the idea that IF X is audible, it makes sense it should be measurable.

Except throughout the post you kept implying that you ARE hearing differences and from that conviction...therefore it should be measurable.

There wasn't really an acknowledgement of the obvious variable that you could be misconceiving differences that aren't there.  It was more about "I hear it...so why can't we measure it?"

"That is why I ask the ultimate question: If it doesn’t measure differently, does that mean ipso facto that there are no sonic differences?"

Remember that measurements, and measurement devices, didn't just arise out of some abstract vacuum.

The main reason measuring devices arose is to extend the known limits of our senses!  That's why we need devices to detect X-rays that we can't see, telescopes to see distant objects we can't see, devices to detect radiation, ultrasonic noises we can't hear, and on and on.  The measuring equipment used for audio gear can reliably detect and quantify both things we can hear, and cannot hear.

And the the use of measurements in audio only arose by correlating those measurements to what we hear.  That's the whole point.  It seems lots of audiophiles start with this strange assumption that measurements in regards to audio equipment are just some laboratory abstraction, whereas they arose by careful correlation to what we hear (and can't hear).

So, as to your question: It will depend on the particular claim.  We don't have Absolute Certainty about anything of course, so it's a matter of adjudicating the likelihood based on what seems to be known.  So if you take an AC cable, measure the signal with an expensive cable vs cheap cable and there is no detectable difference, that strongly implies it's not changing the signal.  And therefore it's more probable a bias effect is responsible for the listener thinking he hears a difference.  It's not Absolute.  Just the more probable explanation.

Someone may object and say "Ok, but what If I AM hearing a real sonic difference that you can't detect by those instruments?"

Ok...how could that be tested?  You CAN also test that claim: do a blind test to remove the possibility of listener bias.  If you can detect the difference reliably, then even if the measurements are the same, this DOES suggest there is something audibly detectable happening.  You are vindicated!

But if you are going to reject BOTH any attempts at objective verification (measurements) and subjective verification-with-controls (blind tests)...then what is left?   What way forward to you have to figuring out what is actually the case?

If the way forward is "always trust our perception" then that flies in the face of all we know about the fallibility of our perception.  And it also leads to countless contradictions where one person perceives "no difference" and someone else "obvious difference," which tells you NOTHING therefore about what is actually happening, and it would validate literally every crazy claim anyone has ever conceived (because no matter how crazy the idea, there are people who believe they are experiencing it).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

@axo1989

Nice post of yours directly above this one.

Re the quoted one, thanks. I think I first posted there around Christmas time. I read reviews a few years prior. Didn’t find your user name but give me a clue and I’ll follow up :-) Best to avoid heavy baggage I agree.

I’ve often been treated like a "subjectivist-in-wolf’s-clothing" on ASR. But that’s usually from the small cadre of "the usual suspects. " So there is certainly some inflexible thinking going on, and some are triggered by any appeal to subjectivity or subjective descriptions.   (In fact at one point it was suggested that I should continually declare that I reviewed speakers for a little while, 20 years ago, so that everyone could view my arguments with the proper amount of suspicion and by association with the reviewer crowd my honesty should be suspect...)

As I think you've seen I am often arguing against that type of mindset just as I do about a "purely subjectivist" mindset here.

But there is a lot of common ground and agreement with many others and on the whole I find the forum agreeable.   Same with people here.

 

 

nonoise, your response was, as usual, strewn with strawmen.

Sometime when you really want to interact with what has been argued, we are here for conversation.

fleschler,

Here is my own approach to these questions:

Nobody is being force to become engineers or do scientific or blind tests when evaluating equipment. Nor should they be.

But it’s still the case that many of us want to know what is true...or LIKELY...or not in regard to claims about audio gear, because there are so many different claims, and we care about how we spend our money and time.

So if I’m voicing skepticism about your results, you don’t have to do a thing. Just carry on. But I am giving my reasons for why I find the claims uncompelling.

So when you say if you hear dramatic results it suggests you must be hearing something real, unfortunately that’s not true. We really can imagine "dramatic" results. Just consider the astounding number of experiences people believe they’ve had, everything from alien abductions to becoming convinced they were part of satanic rituals when they were a child to utterly implausible alternative-medicine treatments that "worked" etc. If someone can imagine they were probed by an alien, you think an audiophile can’t imagine "less midrange glare or better dynamics?"

So I approach another audiophile’s claims not on the strength of his personal conviction, but on the plausibility of the claim. If someone is describing to me the differences he heard between Devore and Magico speakers...hey...TOTALLY plausible given that we know very well speakers differ in very audible ways. Could there be some bias infecting the claim? Of course. But as a practical matter, it’s reasonable to conditionally accept the claims of the sonic differences.

But if someone is declaring their new $1,000 USB cable has dramatically improved his system, deeper bass, bigger soundstage, more dynamics and all that...well that is a more implausible claim based on how digital signals work. I’m not going to demand THAT person make his decisions based on MY criteria, but I am going to explain why I would want stronger evidence than that person’s say-so, before I accept the claim. And I will defend why that is rational for me to do so.

So don’t mix up what I’m saying as a declaration you have to do anything different at all in your pursuit of gear. I am simply defending the reasons for skepticism. If you think those reasons are poor ones, then yeah that becomes central to the debate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

@crymeanaudioriver

I agree with AXO1989’s comment.

 

How do you know they are that and not a reflection of a very nice or very poor aesthetic, or prior conditioning, or the ongoing fight with the spouse?

Generally I note whether a subjective reviewer is good at putting sound in to words - usefully! - and if I note his/her descriptions correlate very well with equipment I’ve owned or heard myself, then I gain some confidence that his observations can be useful. I also note reviewers who seem to care particularly about noting the things I care about, so I feel ’ok, this person listens like me, he’s listening for the same things, and he’s very good at detecting and describing them."

I have been led to quite a few wonderful products, parsing reviews in this way. I’ve also been amazed how perceptive and accurate some of their descriptions have been when they are describing speakers I’m familiar with.

In fact I was just reading an old review of the Devore O/93 speakers that I’ve auditioned numerous times and love, which also sound like the bigger O/96 that I like even more. I was bewitched by those speakers - they did something really special that stood out from all the other speakers I auditioned. And the reviewer nailed the way the Devores reproduced realistic organic timbre and density:

"A snare drum skin sounds exactly like a real snare drum skin. A cymbal crashes, splashes, sparkles, and has airborne sonic decay as if a drum kit is being played in front of me. A singer’s voice has chest resonance – not just throat vibration – which signals my brain to believe that vocal emanation is being projected by an organic, physical mass, just like a real singer standing in the room would sound."

 

Those words could have been taken right out of my head after my first audition of the Devore O-series speakers. The FIRST thing that hit me, as a fan of drums, was "man THAT sounds more like a real snare than I’ve heard anywhere!" Then I listened to one of my drum solo test tracks and was blown away by the sound of the cymbals. I’d rarely heard them that big, brassy, airy, splashy...so much like the real thing. The startling sensation of a "drum kit being played in front of me" stuck in my mind for weeks (having grown up with drums, played them, played in bands).  I was also struck by the way the Devores gave a sense of body and density to sounds missing in many other speakers...exactly as the reviewer pointed out.

So I can see this guy is caring about what I care about, listening for what I’m listening for, and his description (including most of the rest of the review) is bang on from what I took away from the Devore auditions.

The thing is, over on ASR the Devore speakers are just immediately dismissed because they immediately see "problems" with the design, that don’t fit the "harman kardon curve" school of design that is favored there. I would never, ever have been drawn to the Devores via that web site. It was subjective descriptions from other audiophiles and writers that kept hitting on certain themes about those speakers, which made me say ’these sound right up my alley.’

I could mention all sorts of subjective reviews that I found very accurate. (For instance Herb at Stereophile nailed the character differences comparing Harbeth and Joseph Audio speakers, both of which I have owned).

@fleschler

 

@axo1989

I’ve always been fascinated by the difference between live and reproduced sound.

I don’t pretend that my system (or any system) could reproduce all the recorded (acoustic) music as it sounded in front of the microphones (and that isn’t even the goal in most cases for recordings). But I do find it fascinating noticing to what degree reproduced sound can get closer to the real thing or not. It was actually discovering that a good system could reproduce *some* characteristics I love about live sound that got me in to hi-fi.

So I’m constantly checking the difference. For instance I live right near a very popular urban street surrounded by parks and live performances are a constant - small bands on street corners, in parks, in bars etc. So if I come upon, say, a quartet playing jazz, I will close my eyes and take note, asking myself "what does this sound like? What distinguishes it from reproduced sound?"

One of the main things that stick out to me are an effortless clarity, a timbral richness, dynamic life, but especially the sheer size of the sound. A sax or trombone sounds far bigger and richer, with very dense acoustic power. It makes most reproduced versions seem more like miniaturized, spectral toys that I can wave my hands through.

And drums always strike me for having a different balance than in reproduced sound. With closed eyes everything sounds BIG or life-sized, the kick drum is big, the snare is big, the cymbals sound BIG. There is no "pear shape" effect, like the cymbals being squeezed through tiny tweeters.

So it always impresses me whenever I hear a speaker that seems to portray instruments with more realistic size, weight and density, especially in the upper frequencies which is even more rare.

I don’t for a minute mean to suggest the Devore speakers produce drums or anything else with absolute realism. Only that to my ears, in some parameters, they are going a little further in that direction than many speakers I’ve heard.

I don’t demand that my system fool me I’m hearing real sounds. But when it’s a natural sounding recording of acoustic instruments, if a speaker is doing at least some of the things I like about real instruments, it can make "slipping in to the illusion" pleasurable and easier. I approach it like watching a movie. A movie is never going to look totally real (and often shouldn’t), it’s a 2D screen, contrast etc is never fully lifelike. But the reason many productions go to great lengths to "get things right" (sets, clothes, script that are plausible) is that it makes it easier to slip in to the illusion of the story. "Believable" being the goal, which acknowledges the user is willfully entering the illusion, not an impossible goal of "Absolute Realism."

One would expect that reproducing a full symphony orchestra via a pair of average sized floor standing speakers is a pipe dream, and of course it is in any Absolute sense. Yet, I’ve tweaked my system to the degree that I find it tonally convincing, and spatially prodigious, and when I play a good orchestral piece, if I meet the illusion 1/2 way, and just imagine I’m listening to an orchestra from seats further away, then the size seems "right" and life-sized, and the sensation of peering through a hall listening to a real orchestra can be quite thrilling.

 

 

@henry53 

AMR continues to make measurements that appear extremely accurate but have no reference whatsoever to audible sound.

I don't see how that is an accurate account of what ASR is doing.

The whole point of the measurements are always with respect to the audible consequences, or not, of those measurements.  The speaker measurements for instance arose BECAUSE of how they have been correlated to audible differences in speaker design.  Amir often explains the audible consequences of the measurements, and also listens and reports any relevant audible consequences.

If you mean to reference their measurements of things like SINAD, then once again, it's all in the context of audibility - that is, "will this be audible?" and the answer can be yes or no depending on the measurement.  A lot of the SINAD differences are in to the inaudible range, but that's the point - ensuring they are in the inaudible range.

I agree that it can look a bit silly to keep chasing ever greater SINAD numbers once we are well in to the inaudible range.  However, in the bigger picture, the fact the measurements allow us to know the gear in question has distortion elements that are inaudible is the main point.

 

Yeesh.

Amir isn’t ’invading’ Audiogon.

 

Someone created a thread critiquing him and his web site, so he’s entered the thread to clear up misconceptions and answer questions. I think it’s great that he showed up!

Should we just keep this an echo chamber where criticisms are thrown around and never countered because "stay in your lane!" ??

Also, don’t speak for everyone: plenty of people here do not wish to fall for b.s. claims made by manufacturers and we are glad there are places like ASR which puts these (and other audiophile claims) under more rigorous scrutiny.   And I'm sure I'm not alone in appreciating Amir showing up here to disabuse misinfo.  Don’t treat Audiogon as some hive-mind of pure Golden-Eared subjectivism - the members span a gamut.

@fleschler 

 

One doesn't have to believe any online person; however, based on the enormous "subjectivist" opinions, people actually do hear differences, right or wrong, personal preferences included, regardless of measurements and decide to what sounds best to them, in a system, in a room.  Nothing you say will change that. 

Fleschler, that comes across as a dogmatic statement "You Can't Change Our Minds!"   Do you really want to seem that inflexible?  Isn't being open minded a two way street?  It often seems that people using a purely subjective ("Golden Ear") paradigm will castigate the "objectivist" for not being open to their claims, but will remain stubbornly opposed to being open to the objectivist side.

 

Also, you seem to be projecting your own attitude on to others.  It's simply not true that "nothing (Amir) can say will change" minds.  He, and others on his site, and other people on the internet over the years taking a similar view, have changed plenty of minds.  ASR is FULL of people who used to be in the "everything I think I hear is real" camp but who are taking a more critical look at the claims of many audiophiles and high-end audio companies.  

Honestly, not everyone is so close minded to the arguments and evidence presented by Amir.  Look at the huge number of comments under his youtube videos - it's full of incredibly appreciative comments!

 

He tales the joy out of the hobby.  It is a hobby for most of us, not a vocation. 

 

Again, please be aware this is speaking for yourself.  In no way does he take the "joy out of the hobby" for tons of people who appreciate the knowledge gained over on ASR.   He's not entering your listening room and taking away your tweaks, or telling you that you have to stop buying whatever you want. 

One could just as well complain that "all these audiophiles telling us everything needs break in" are taking the joy out of the hobby.  But...one is free to ignore this and take our own approach (and/or look at the evidence for such claims if we wish).

 

 

 

 

 

 

"ASR members are soooo condescending!"

^^^ Say certain AGon members making the most condescending comments about ASR members and their equipment.

And none of this is taken notice of by those castigating "objectivists" or sites like ASR.   All the "arrogance and condescension" is always on the other side.  But, that’s human nature for you: We tend not to notice when our tribe does it.

 

 

@fleschler 

 

You've avoided answering the question, and missed the point.

People can imagine "dramatic" differences.  They really, really can. 

Like I said, if we really want to get at what is true, it doesn't matter how much conviction someone has in their belief or claim; what matters is the plausibility and the evidence for that claim.

And as I've pointed out: the approach at ASR is acknowledging one can be wrong in what we believe or seem to perceive, and offers ways of learning one is wrong, and helping to settle questions in dispute - through evidence.

 

Whereas you keep repeating versions where you simply assume your perception is reliable, as you have done again, which is begging exactly the question at hand.

And you don't offer a method for how anyone could show you are in error.

So far, your position still seems to be a form of dogmatism - "Some differences that I hear are OBVIOUS and that's that!  Nothing can show I'm wrong!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

@fleschler

 

You can’t change our minds refers to people hearing differences.

Yes, that’s precisely what I thought you meant, and that is my point.

This is the dogmatism buried in to the pure subjective mode of vetting audio gear.

If you are of the "ASR" state of mind, you start of by immediately acknowledging our fallibility. You may perceive that the music signal is audibly changing between, say, two different USB cables.

 

But you will understand "I could be wrong. I’m fallible." So it STARTS with acknowledging I Could Be Wrong, and then appeals to ways in which you can find out you are wrong: For example if someone measures the signals from both USB cables and they are precisely the same. This is some evidence the signal was likely not changing at all. But if you want even further confirmation that the measurements aren’t missing something, you can do a blind test where you are truly relying on what you can hear (and not + what you can see). If you can’t detect any sonic difference, then you have a good basis for learning "Hey, looks like I was wrong in thinking one USB was altering the signal vs the other."

Similarly, if you are SKEPTICAL that, say, Amplifier A will sound audibly different from amplifier B, then you have ways of changing your mind there too. If someone presents measurable evidence that Amplifier A has distortion levels in the audible range and B doesn’t, then you have some evidence for changing your mind. And, again, blind tests in which the difference is reliably identified adds more evidence.

So from the ASR point of view, one always starts with some humility WITH REGARD to the confidence we have in our own judgements of perception, acknowledging from the outset we could be in error. AND it provides ways of "Learning I was wrong, through evidence."

Anyone taking the ASR approach is in principle open to being wrong; they just ask for good evidence. In other words "Here is what I believe, but I could be wrong, and HERE is how you can show that I’m wrong."

But what you have just re-iterated states the problem with pure subjectivity perfectly. Your stance seems to be ’If I hear it, I am not wrong. No way! And you can’t bring ANY of your arguments or evidence that will change my mind!"

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

That approach is unfalsifiable. If "My Own Perception Is Reliable" is the ultimate litmus test, then even when someone else uses precisely the same method to "disprove" your belief - he listens to the same set up and declares ’There is no sonic difference," you can always say ’Well, the only shows your hearing is not as perceptive as mine, because I Know What I Hear And You Can’t Show I’m Wrong!"

Can you tell me in a case where you are "sure" you are hearing sonic differences, how...using your method of relying on sighted perception!... someone could show that you’re in error, so you’d change your mind?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, it's a seven-step program like Alcoholics Anonymous? 

 

Ha!  Minus the religious proselytizing of AA.  For some I suppose it could be a similar detox from being marinated in audiophile myths ;-) 

 

I will take unlikely for $800, @prof

 

Well, since I’ve been asking this question - "by your method how can these matters of fact be settled?" - of "pure subjectivists/golden ears" for years and no one has ever answered...you’ve made a pretty safe bet.

Would like to learn I’m wrong this time, though.

@crymeanaudioriver

Congrats!  Your $800 is in the mail  ;-)

 

 

 

 

 

 

@laoman

@prof:
" ’If I hear it, I am not wrong. No way! And you can’t bring ANY of your arguments or evidence that will change my mind!"

Here is the thing. A while ago I was looking around for a new DAC. I listened to about 8 and in no case was the cost of the DAC mentioned. I just sat in a chair and listened to the same music. One that I disregarded very quickly was the Topping. The mid range is shrill and fatiguing. When I mentioned this on ASR I was told I was wrong and thrown out. I heard what I heard.

 

So you and others continue to demonstrate that my anaylsis is correct.

"You heard what you heard" and nobody can tell you otherwise. As opposed to at ASR people can actually correct their impressions through additional evidence. They are open to being wrong.

I’ll contrast your experience with my own regarding "I heard what I heard."

In the 90’s some folks were sure all properly functioning DACs/CD Players sounded the same. I understood the basis for this, but at the time I had a Meridian CDP, a Sony CDP and another DAC. They all sounded subtly but distinctly different to me. However, I knew I could be fooling myself so I had my engineer father-in-law help me do blind tests (with the levels matched using a voltmeter at the speaker terminals, to ensure precise volume matching). Results: I easily and reliably was able to detect which player I was hearing, even when I couldn’t see which one was playing. I even repeated the results in another blind test later on.

So blind tests do not always equal "No Sonic Differences." They can uncover real sonic differences.

Another example: I moved from an Apple based streaming server system to a Raspberry Pi/Logitech streamer. When I did I was surprised to find the sound a bit more bright and brittle with the Pi system. This bothered me because I wasn’t expecting any sonic difference, and yet there it was, play to hear!

Before I got more frustrated I thought I’d better check and a friend helped me blind test between the two servers. Well...what do you know? Once I didn’t know which was playing there was NO difference to the sound whatsoever that I could reliably detect. Not a bit of added brittleness or brightness to distinguish one from the other. I tried and tried. Nothing.

So, that was good enough for me. No sonic differences were really there. And sure enough, once I’d done this test I never heard a difference between them again. My system sounded like it always had.

 

Sometimes we are hearing accurately. Sometimes we are mistaken.

I find these to be very useful lessons in what it feels like to imagine differences. Sound perception really does change with our attention, our mood etc. And then we attribute this to an objective component, rather than our subjective interpretation.

As I mentioned earlier, it’s too bad more audiophiles haven’t had this experience. It would make these conversations much less adversarial. But most just can’t accept the idea that if they REALLY feel like they heard something that they could actually be mistaken.  (Plus, then you wouldn't get to Lord it over others, like "objectivists" by rejecting any expertise on the grounds "your expertise doesn't count in the face of My Personal Experience!")

I suppose part if it feels like a house of cards to some: "Wait, my senses are reliable to get me through the day, all day long, and now you are trying to tell me they aren’t reliable? That can’t make sense!"

Well, yes, they aren’t of course totally unreliable. Our senses are generally reliable. But we are also prone to error as well. See: optical illusions and countless other instances. Nobody needs to "science the sh*t" out of everything they do. But if we really want to get at the truth of some things, then we should be ready to admit that our human fallibility is one of the factors we have to control for.

 

 

 

 

 

 

No religion, you just have to believe in a higher power than yourself...maybe like Amir? 

I don't take everything Amir writes as gospel.  I've had various disagreements with him on his forum.   So I think critically about what I'm reading, and whether the arguments follow from the data.

On the other hand, I'm quite aware he knows FAR more than I do technically, and has tons of expertise in areas that I sorely lack.

I don't really find it hard to acknowledge when someone has expertise that I lack.

My ego can take it.

How about you?

 

 

 

 

@laoman

I don’t know if you are stupid, are being deliberately obtuse, or cannot comprehend written English.

Do you think insults are really necessary?

Is it possible you maybe didn’t understand the point of what I wrote, rather then me being an idiot?

I wrote that I had no idea of the cost of or the Dac to which I was listening. I discarded those I disliked and purchased the best sounding Dac in the price range I could afford.

Yes. I know.

The point was that you wrote that the folks on ASR said you were "wrong" about the shrillness of the DAC, but that you wouldn’t countenance this because "You heard what you heard."

The point was...it really is possible the DAC really wasn’t producing any shrillness and that you were imagining it (a bias listening effect). It is actually possible the ASR guys were right. It’s possible that JUST LIKE MY EXAMPLE WITH MY SERVER, where I felt like I was hearing brightness/brittleness in the highs, but I was imagining it, you too may have been imagining it.

Blind testing can be one way to remove variables, like our biases.

It could also possibly be that you were NOT imagining the difference. But given the state of the art in DACs, and Topping’s reputation for well designed DACs, it should raise some red flags if someone says "this sounded shrill." I personally would, as in the case of my music server, want to rule out imagination first.

Because we really, really can imagine these things easily. And no it doesn’t matter whether you like the most expensive DAC or the least expensive. Our bias works simply by listening for differences (and even when we aren’t deliberately listening for differences).

This, yet again, goes to show how hard it is to discuss these things with someone who has never actually put their ears and biases to the test in blind testing. It’s humbling...and educational...but some will refuse to even consider the idea.

It's sort of like having had hearing tests performed by audiologists that show you can't hear over 20kHz, and coming back to a group of people who absolutely insist they can hear up to 30 kHz, but never put that to an actual test in an audiogram (audiograms are a form of blind testing), and dismiss the expertise of audiologists or anyone who has actually taken the test.   Sometimes you don't know what you don't know....

 

 

 

 

 

 

@fleschler 

Yet again...your replies are just exemplifying all my arguments for me.

Every reply is based on your own infallible hearing.  No other evidence need apply. 

And if for instance I didn't hear a difference between some tweak or cable where you thought you heard a difference, it could never be that I'm hearing what is real and you are wrong.  It must always be you are right.   And since you leave no way at all of adjudicating such questions, or learning if you are wrong, the only retort you leave yourself is to Lord it over anyone who disagrees  - as you are claiming...with zero evidence... to have superior hearing capabilities to me.

Let's see, how plausible is this brag?

Well, I've been an audiophile obsessed with sound for most of my 58 years.  Been a musician too.  I've been obsessed with live vs reproduced sound for so long I've done recordings and comparisons of live vs reproduced.  I have been so obsessed with sound that it became my livelihood - I work in pro sound post production doing sound for film and TV.  I am typically balancing and mixing the audio of up to 60 tracks at a time. I am manipulating sound all day long down to the finest nuance, literally matching the "air tone" of different rooms.  I guarantee you would not be able to pick out many of the things I can pick out in tracks.

I've heard countless super high end systems. I've been an audio reviewer, and have had friends in the industry for decades, still hearing lots of the best of the best stuff. (My friend's system is currently cabled up with about $50,000...just for the cabling!).  My reviewer friends call me to listen because they trust my ears to hear things they will miss.  Etc etc.

But...nope...you have somehow diagnosed that I must have cloth ears compared to your "capabilities."

Well, anyone can claim "capabilities."  I can claim to hear angels singing in the background on Kind Of Blue.  Oh, you can't hear them?  Poor you...you must lack my "capabilities."  I can say that stuff all I want to puff myself up and lord it over you.  Except you'd immediately recognize I haven't given an ounce of evidence for my brag.  So we'd be even ;-)

I've actually been willing to truly put my ears to the test - to see when I can hear differences WITHOUT the knowledge of what I'm hearing.  Apparently this is experience you lack.   And so long as you continue to lack this experience of really putting your claims to a test where you might fail,   then I'm sorry, the claims fail to impress.

 

 

Your post is nonsensical. I heard 8 Dacs. 1 sounded shrill in the MR, 7 did not. 2 others did not appeal. I quite liked 5.How cn you say I am wrong when I compared 8?

I'm not saying you are wrong. I'm pointing out you COULD be wrong.  Because people can imagine differences that aren't there.

You aren't Superman.

Do you have ANY idea why blind and double-blind testing is used in scientific studies?

Are you aware AT ALL of the fallibility of human perception?  There's only a billion studies showing this.

This thread like every such thread just shows this inherent personal dogmatism.

People in the "If I hear it it's real" camp simply can not admit they could be wrong. Don't even seem to realize it's a possibility.  It's fairly astonishing to ignore that much about the human condition.

 

@cleeds

 

As for "outlandish claims," it’s hard top your claim that you’ve "reviewed" components that you haven’t ever heard. You may be the only "reviewer" with that level of confidence. Truly odd.

Amir will measure the actual signal output when testing things like cables, and show that they either do not change the signal at all, or that the changes are so extraordinarily low they are well in to the realm we need instruments like a Precision Analyzer to detect them. Remember: instruments are typically devised to extend our limited senses, to reliably detect what we can not detect using our senses alone.

And yet audiophiles will still claim to hear sonic differences with such products, and simply dismiss this evidence. This is akin to dismissing the scientific evidence for the limits of human hearing and claiming "I don’t care what the objective data say, I can hear up to 30 kHz!" While also refusing to take an audiogram with a professional audiologist because "I reject the use of such blind tests to tell me the limits of my hearing."

And you want to talk about "outlandish claims?"

In many such cases...even though Amir actually will include listening tests...he doesn’t need to. Based on plenty of research in to the limits of human hearing, distortion levels, masking thresholds etc, he can say "This is inaudible" from the measurements. To say it IS audible is going against most of the science and engineering theory. So Amir is not making the outlandish or extraordinary claim, the audiophile who claims to hear differences is doing so. So IF you are going to reject the measurements and the inferences from those measurements, these audiophiles could step up and show, in tests where they aren’t peeking at the gear, they can actually reliably identify the differences they claim.

Unsurprisingly, this virtually never happens. But...they’ll just continue to throw darts at Amir and ASR, and continue to brag about having "more capable hearing" than poor Amir and the ASR crowd, without ever putting this to a test.

How convenient.