Back in the 70s in Boston, before Car Talk took its time slot on WBUR, we had a show called Shop Talk, with an objectivist BU physics professor and a subjectivist psychoanalyst bouncing ideas and taking calls. The science guy was very like Amir.
The Yankee Skinflint ethos ruled, and the keepers of the flame ran the Boston Audio Society. It was an interesting time. Blind ABX testing was the holy grail of confirmation bias busting. Parts is parts! But many of these guys manufactured gear…Apt/Holman, Dunlap Clarke, DBX, Burwen Acoustics, Apogee Acoustics, Cizek, to name a few. IMO, their approach didn’t produce great gear.
Did Amir Change Your Mind About Anything?
It’s easy to make snide remarks like “yes- I do the opposite of what he says.” And in some respects I agree, but if you do that, this is just going to be taken down. So I’m asking a serious question. Has ASR actually changed your opinion on anything? For me, I would say 2 things. I am a conservatory-trained musician and I do trust my ears. But ASR has reminded me to double check my opinions on a piece of gear to make sure I’m not imagining improvements. Not to get into double blind testing, but just to keep in mind that the brain can be fooled and make doubly sure that I’m hearing what I think I’m hearing. The second is power conditioning. I went from an expensive box back to my wiremold and I really don’t think I can hear a difference. I think that now that I understand the engineering behind AC use in an audio component, I am not convinced that power conditioning affects the component output. I think.
So please resist the urge to pile on. I think this could be a worthwhile discussion if that’s possible anymore. I hope it is.