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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. 

chayro

Showing 2 responses by fleschler

fleschler
1,923 posts
 

AMIR - He's Baaaaaack!  

While people have a wide range of audio sound preferences, I do not comprehend the religion among many high/higher end speaker manufacturers to produce perfectly flat frequency response measurements.  You could give me Wilsons, Magicos, et.al. perfectly measuring speakers and I would not accept them, nor would my friends, my mastering engineer friends (for home use) or many other speaker manufacturers and dealers.  Musicality, maybe ineffable to many people, is the goal, not as mesuring instrument.  If the sound of whatever type of music does not emotionally engage, then it is generally not the direction audiophilia should take. Unfortunately, many serious music listeners (that includes mid-fi as well, lower cost equipment, older used equipment, et.al.) miss the boat relying on measurements and design proclamations.  Often, they lack an educated ear, not knowing or having experienced musically involving audio systems.  

Some listeners prefer extreme resolution, detail and others prefer body, color and dynamics.  There's a speaker and audio gear for everyone at every price point.  However, based on measurements over an educated ear for listening is foolish method of creating a satisfying audio system.  That's my opinion. 

fleschler
1,923 posts
 

I have an educated bias when it comes to purchasing audio equipment.

I do not want to purchase a cartridge with a rising high end and I haven’t in 54 years.

I do not want to purchase a speaker that requires high powered amplification. Medium power (20 watts to 125 tube watts generally).

I do not want to purchase a tangential tracking tone arm.

I will not purchase a stat speaker again (tried them for 20 years).

These are among my biases, mostly based on measured statistics concerning those audio products.

Measurements are important mostly as a starting point. Listening to equipment in a system in a room will either please me or not (I’ve walked out of most of the audio 1000s of showrooms I’vve heard due to bad sounding systems, often due to acoustic and electrical issues in showrooms).

 

@audphile1 Absolutely. Using higher end equipment (tweaks included) may or may not work well with lesser equipment, particularly if the lower end result will lack resolution of some audio factor (detail, body, dynamics, PRAT, etc etc). I wouldn’t know that my higher end DAC was good without an equally excellent transport. They work in symmetry. Imagine using Hallographs on Bose speakers. Nope.

 

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