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.
@amir_asr - hi there amir, thank you for your participation in audiogon, and your extensive replies. I have a question that is very important to me to ask, and I hope you will find my request in the sea of responses this thread has become. There is a pretty basic test I found on the internet, of listening ability based on two different digitally configured formats, one in a higher resolution. Here is the said link -
To make it more difficult to hear the sound quality and thus evaluate, lending deeper weight to the results, I had twelve different friends listen to the test tracks on the same mobile phone, with the same rather basic earbuds.
Three of them were all over the place with their evaluations, a few got just a hair over half correct, but four of them got every one of the six tracks correct as related to which was higher in resolution. None were allowed to A/B/A the tracks, just an A followed by a B. The friends were all between 39 and 65, and there appeared to be no correlation between age and the test results.
The equipment was the same in every case, and not the best to evaluate sound quality with, but it was felt to be the best way to test the effort and abilities of the listeners. All things considered and in the absence of perfect testing conditions, can i trouble you to advise if this was a good way to test for listening ability?
Thank you for your quick response, amir. I hope you won’t mind if I can clarify an issue (I realise how many queries you are attempting to answer at the same time, so I fully understand if you missed this) -
My question was if you could advise if the test was a good way to gauge listening ability, but your reply involved "Methods for the subjective assessment of small impairments in audio systems", training and learning.
My question did not have anything to do with a method, or training, or audio systems, just whether the test, even if intended to have participants give a ‘no, there is no difference’ answer; only if you could advise if it was a good starting point to gauge ‘listening ability’.
The first response you gave me the impression you had already decided the test was not good for training or or learning. The test was certainly not posturing as being anything other than a simple measure if an individual could hear the differences of resolution in the two files presented.
It seems to me, with the results I got from the twelve friends I asked, that the test, however basic, served its purpose. I wondered if you could advise if this simple test works well enough as a beginning to determine good listeners from bad listeners, all training aside.
Thank you for your quick response, amir. I hope you won’t mind if I can clarify an issue (I realise how many queries you are attempting to answer at the same time, so I fully understand if you missed this) -
My question was if you could advise if the test was a good way to gauge listening ability, but your reply involved "Methods for the subjective assessment of small impairments in audio systems", training and learning.
My question did not have anything to do with a method, or training, or audio systems, just whether the test, even if intended to have participants give a ‘no, there is no difference’ answer; only if you could advise if it was a good starting point to gauge ‘listening ability’.
The first response you gave me the impression you had already decided the test was not good for training or or learning. The test was certainly not posturing as being anything other than a simple measure if an individual could hear the differences of resolution in the two files presented.
It seems to me, with the results I got from the twelve friends I asked, that the test, however basic, served its purpose. I wondered if you could advise if this simple test works well enough as a beginning to determine good listeners from bad listeners, all training aside.
Thank you for your quick response, amir. I hope you won’t mind if I can clarify an issue (I realise how many queries you are attempting to answer at the same time, so I fully understand if you missed this) -
My question was if you could advise if the test was a good way to gauge listening ability, but your reply involved "Methods for the subjective assessment of small impairments in audio systems", training and learning.
My question did not have anything to do with a method, or training, or audio systems, just whether the test, even if intended to have participants give a ‘no, there is no difference’ answer; only if you could advise if it was a good starting point to gauge ‘listening ability’.
You have me at a disadvantage as I thought I clearly answered your question. Once again, no, it is not a proper test so doesn't make for a good starting point or any starting point for that matter.
It reminds me of buying a Japanese learning CDs years ago at an airport. It claimed full immersion and quick learning. I start the lesson and first thing it wants to teach is the words for Horse and Jockey! I am pretty sure that should not be the starting point to learn any new language unless you are into horses. :)
But tell me what you concluded about the results of the tests you ran. Who had good listening ability and why?
Thanks for taking time to reply : ) - may I assume that my having you at a disadvantage is your acknowledgement you had not directly responded to my original question? It is important only because your latest reply is again about learning when my question is about inherent ability :) – this is a factor of vital importance as we will come to later in my reply here, in answer to your question.
Your comment, that the instructional CD and its first two words of translated instruction (‘horse’ and ‘jockey) did not make a conducive start to learning any language unless one had an interest in horses, caught my attention.
It is known with the pedagogy of language learning, that understanding the general or foundational rules of syntax and phonetics is far more complex than a beginning with specific but simple words that name the world around us….well, like horses and jockeys! Nouns are, in fact, the way children and full adults begin to have interest to learn and understand a new language in every society and culture. It begins as distinct sounds and inflections of those sounds. I would argue, in fact, that the CD attempted to immediately immerse you in the start it promised, in learning Japanese, and that the bias you had of what learning a language should be about, coloured what the CD offered.
That aside, would you agree that your bias towards ‘learning’ has coloured your two responses thus far? That is, in relation to my question which is about inherent ability. This is an important factor in light of the bigger discussion of the thread, everything of which really boils down to just one thing – if differences in sound quality can actually be heard between equally measuring equipment. And all that boils down to just one other single thing - that is, if listening ability can be better evaluated.
Learning how to listen and inherent listening ability are two quite different things, something which the listening test I posted shows.
The categorical mistake of equating listening tests of equipment with listening tests for human hearing aside, formal blind listening tests in fact carry more than one uncontrolled variable, contrary to accepted belief. These unknowns are 1) the hearing/listening abilities of the listener, and 2) the potential (if unmeasureable) differences in equipment under test. You see, we cannot use as a control the very unknown that we are attempting to determine, just because we believe accurate measurements of that same equipment make it a ‘control’. The ones who believe that differences exist think that their unqualified listening abilities are the control, and the ones who don’t believe differences exist, think that their measured equipment is the control, when the equipment itself is that which is being blind tested. With the test I posted, the resolutions of the test tracks are controlled, as with the playback device and earphones the test is conducted on. The only variable is the listener.
Formal blind listening tests are designed to fail both parties, because they do not qualify as tests (having more than one variable), let alone being that which tests for listening ability. It is a categorical mistake to substitute one for the other.
There are other listening tests many others refer to, having to do with frequency range done under very controlled circumstances in a clinic. These, unfortunately, chop sounds up into bits and pieces and are not listening tests, let alone tests for listening to music which is above all, about time; those are hearing tests, a completely different qualification of what an educated and deeply trained listener is about.
While we may each have a very strong belief in how we rate as listeners, we may not actually know in relation to others, or a standard for comparison, where we each actually stand. And, as you have rightfully pointed out numerous times in this thread, our unqualified hearing cannot be relied on – this accessible test allows each of us to quickly know if we can trust our listening ability, or if it needs practice and development, by way of track resolutions we cannot contest, and our own ears as the only variable.
There is more I have to add, but I leave it here for now, in anticipation of your response. Thanks again.
So sorry, I just realised I had forgotten to tell you the results of the actual test. The test subjects ranged between 39 to 65 – a 63 year old was one of the four who identified resolution for all six tracks correctly, another was 59, an the last two were 42 and 45 respectively. The 45 year old was a woman. Three of them identified just two tracks correctly, two of them were women aged 40 and 46, and the ones who got between three and four tracks right were all men. None of them were professionally trained listeners, and most of the men were into hifi audio. None of the women were. There didn’t seem to be any correlation between age, accuracy, or experience, leading me to believe that one may hear frequencies well, but not be able to listen accurately. The number of accurate listeners seemed strangely high, but the sampling was too small to draw any conclusions from that.
Oh, I was the 59 year old.
Two things appeared to be absolutely clear – first, that inherent listening ability is very different from individual to individual, and second, it was a surprise that so many were accurate, despite the average quality of equipment used.
No equipment to debunk, no measurements, no claims of golden ears, just plain simple listening ability that day. Two of the audiophiles were a touch peeved : )
I see that your most recent reply to me has been deleted, amir, and I can only assume you have done so, since no one else would have had anything to gain doing so.
For context to my reply to that, I have attached the URL screen captures of the said reply, for anyone wanting to follow the discussion -
Thanks amir, as always, for your quick reply. Reading through it, however, I felt deep disappointment, as I had expected logical and relevant insight.
Instead, I have begun to see a pattern with all your replies not just to me, but with most participants in this thread. In every reply you have sent me, you have never answered directly. In your first reply, you referred to an unrelated topic on ‘learning how to listen’ when my question was about inherent listening ability. I let that go, and brought your attention to your misread of my question, to have you engage wordplay with my having you at ‘disadvantage’, but then prevaricate by saying you had given a clear answer and in doing so, avoid acknowledgement of your oversight. You then qualify your disapproval of the listening test I asked about, by referring to an anecdote about learning once again, this time by way of paltering over a CD on Japanese language instruction.
I then reply as thoroughly as I can, in response to a question you ask about the test in question, only to then receive a rude reply, denying the logical and conflating my reply with manhood comparisons, once again avoiding the issue that the blind listening tests you advocate are not proper tests, as they have two variables in them, the listener and equipment comparisons, lacking proper controls.
Amir, the way you communicate is through prevarication, conflation and paltering, to avoid direct answer or confrontation with the actual issues under discussion. You present completely unrelated truths to the discussion at hand as argument time and again, in more technical discussion or prosaic response, in order to drag any one attempting to engage reasonable discussion into an endless rabbit warren of linguistic subterfuge, wearing down the other participant with ever increasing divergence until the other quits, in frustration or plain exhaustion.
This lack of sincerity on your part has made me believe your words in discussion can no longer be trusted.
In your most recent reply to me, you countered the simple test for listening ability I presented (on music file resolution) through paltering once again, presenting another listening test you have taken (on injected distortion into selected music files), in complete disregard of the entirely different nature and objectives of each test - Tests on injected distortion examine hearing ability, while tests on file resolution examine listening skill - Hearing ability cannot be changed much; while listening skill, innately poor or good, can be developed. Hearing need not have anything to do with the nuanced ebb and flow of the time domain. Listening is entirely about the most subtle cues of timing and rhythm.
Aside from that, even your statistical calculations lie, as you only calculated for the probability of five correct tracks in a row - getting all six tracks correct moves the decimal one more spot left, leaving a statistical probability of 1.6 percent - well below your passing standard of 13 percent - yet another attempt to pass off a lie as truth.
You conflate and palter entirely unrelated ideas and truths to confuse, convolute and twist any discussion underway to make it appear - at least, to less observant readers - that you have the upper hand. It should be quite clear to anyone reading your replies to me that while you may have above average abilities in hearing, your listening abilities are below average - you gave quite good clue you could not even tell the different resolutions of music files apart. You opine the test was designed to have participants say there is no difference between the tested files, because you could tell no differences yourself when you tried listening to them – it is a truth only you know in your heart, but do not yet know how to confront, because it destroys the entire narrative you have built around measurements.
Amir, the missing piece of your narrative is the other half of the equation called electromagnetism, since all that science has been able to measure is the electrical side - the constantly changing shape and profound nuance of the magnetic field carrying the complexity of a musical signal defies all attempts at measurement. You will say that the electrical side carries all that information, to which I would say that’s why what you claim to do cannot be called science – you ignore all possible relationships, in focussing on just one. You might also say that everything about magnetism can be measured, which is so patently untrue, only the most ignorant would believe that. The relationships that govern electromagnetism are still mysterious to scientists, never mind the effect those relationships have on sound reproduction.
The other missing piece to your narrative, Amir, is self-critique, the humility required to take the next step to the unknown - to not always need to feel to be in command, and let that obsessive compulsion go, if even for a moment, for actual fresh discovery to be found - the stuff true science is made of. You will say all discoveries have already been made in the field of electromagnetism and resultant sound quality, to which even a half-wit will tell you, is not only patently untrue, but frighteningly anti-scientific.
The Sufi have a proverb - ‘If you want to destroy a man, praise him” - it is something I have tried to live by my entire life, not by way of destroying others, but in avoiding the destruction of myself. There is so much of this proverb I see you have allowed to be sown within yourself.
I have found my greatest teachers to have been those who welcome the smallest challenge in the hope of discovering the missing pieces they do not yet know, rather than rejecting all challenge in the possible face of losing all they think they do. True science is the discovery of everything we do not yet understand, not the constant regurgitation of everything that is already established. Electrical measurements in isolation are part of that regurgitation, of the known that merely support ignorance and indoctrination, not true teaching. Indoctrination creates followers and what others cruelly call minions, while teaching inspires new leaders who will exceed what has been taught.
Part of regaining your humility, Amir, as well the ability to self-critique, is to be less cognitively dissonant and more self-aware in understanding that you engage the practice of paltering, prevarication and conflation that characterise politicians and their ilk - it attracts many, who admire those who appear to be in complete command of themselves, but who in fact live very small lives. It also, unfortunately, gives those with unpracticed ears and mind the easy way out, in not bothering to train their listening minds to develop profoundly.
Your method should scare any audiophile beyond belief, because the fear of losing their skills for listening and independent thinking should shake them into training their listening skills well, because any lazy listener can merely adopt your numbers to ease themselves the effort of developing their listening abilities, claiming, as you do, that the difference cannot be heard.
I do not expect my words will make any difference to you, since narcissists commonly suffer cognitive dissonance to such degree, their entire world collapses with the loss of the narratives they have built up around themselves. But even so, I have hope that if you are able to regain the humility to self-critique, you will see that the label of ‘teacher’ that you wear so proudly, is the very one destroying your very ability to think critically, as a student of deeper learning. You could make tremendous contribution to true knowledge.
Nonetheless, I wish you well, and the strength to question your presumptions, assumptions, and ingrained dominant paradigms.
Thank you for your response, Amir. I realise you must think that I’ve only been leading you on all along instead of calling you out directly, only to hurt you after gaining your trust, but that was not my agenda in the least. Please accept my apologies for this seeming so, and also for incorrectly assuming you deleted your own post.
My posts began as a sincere desire to more fully understand you, and as an attempt to intellectually and morally challenge you over issues of discourse you may not have been aware about, having nothing to do with your intelligence, which you obviously possess, but over cognitive dissonance, which we all suffer, in varying degrees.
In the course of our exchange, I began to see the pattern I described in my last post, and was trying to figure a way to broach the topic without having you hunker down and close off to deeper discussion, as I have seen repeatedly in your other exchanges here in this thread. I wanted to word what I was trying to communicate in a way so as to not make you feel threatened, hence my polite deferral to how occupied you must be with all the replies you were engaged with, among many other things.
That said, you are still paltering and prevaricating in your most recent reply. Everything you have said about doctors and diagnosis is true, but are completely unrelated to the statement I made, which you have quoted. True science is indeed about everything that you are not doing, as you merely perform tests based on established theories of what is known. Nothing you have said in your recent post refutes this.
The third paragraph in your reply is the perfect example of paltering - you should address the problems I found in your earlier replies before repeating the same problems in attempt to confuse the discussion. Poor Magister had it the worst - he might not have realised there is an actual term that defines exactly your type of behaviour in communication, and got drawn into your rabbit-hole of semantic subterfuge. Amir, everything you reference, from ITU protocols and bibles, to blind listening tests with multiple variables and just half the measurements needed to understand electromagnetism; everything you reference shows how entrenched you are in the established, the norm, and the tired bureaucratic world of performance testing. You are a performance tester, not a scientist. Not a bad thing, if you still have questions as a proper student of science, rather than the staid answers of the teacher you want to be.
I would still like to keep communication channels open with you, if you are willing to engage with less of a need to defend everything and all you believe in – I have found that singular viewpoints only result in opinions, while a discourse over the relationships between multiple viewpoints is what feeds the power of shared knowledge, and the wisdom that follows.
And I would still like to hear your views (note views and not mere view : ), on my remarks on electromagnetism, and the case being that measurements only engage half the equation.
In somewhat more growingly distant acquaintanceship - kevin
Amir, what of the fact that all along, you have only been measuring just the electrical half of electromagnetism. Can you explain the loss of logic in basing your entire belief system on that?
i hear you, believe me. I mean, who wouldn’t want to save the expense it takes to get things right? Trouble is, and I’ve mentioned in another thread, that there are almost no shortcuts in this crazy hobby of ours. Very little substitutes for the effort of trying as many things as possible, just one change at a time, in the system we know best, in the familiarity of our specific listening spaces.
The wonderful byproduct of the effort, however, are the listening skills we pick up along the way by default - the repetition of a certain track, perhaps, that enables us to make comparisons to a completely different track with the same instrument and parsing out the unique qualities of the space each recording was made in. It is a journey many have made, and all of us have dreaded, at one point or another, only to have discovered it was not so bad after all, when we could actually hear a certain cable let us down, or another pick us back up. With critical listening, it is not possible to fool oneself - the experienced listeners will know what exactly this means. Critical listening breeds no bias, just the need to know what brings more realism. There can be no bargaining with self-honesty, and may I say, the narcissist can never be truly self honest - the trick is not to have vested interest in anything other than discovering a better way forward, mistakes and reputation be damned.
The critical listener is not afraid to discover, regardless of bias, because learning is the goal, not the byproduct. What works better is the only truth they care about.
It takes time and money, unfortunately, because no one can replace what we hear for ourselves. And admittedly, very few can afford to demo with the range and variety it takes to know.
And I’ve found that’s what discussions and forums found on audiogon, among so many others, are for. It takes a whole other amount of effort to weed out the ones whom we believe listen the way we do, based on similar equipment being talked about we might also have had familiarity with, collating the comments, and making as good a critical guess as we can.
And there are those out there who have heard a lot whom one can read and ask, regarding their experiences.
jjss49, as example, is a member who has heard tons, whose sense of sound I trust.
My concern are those with vast amounts of experience, who choose not to share what they know, for fear of being smirked at by the likes of the electrical half-measurers, the ones who think they know more because the measurements say so, and cause discomfort to those who can really advise on what different equipment sounds what way in the specific contexts of the system chains they are in, and the specific listening spaces the sound is heard.
Connecting with and learning from these individuals with experience are the few shortcuts I know to attaining realistic sound without spending huge amounts of money.
Some reviewers are good listeners too, but I’ve also found them to be somewhat less reliable than ordinary peeps, who are not under any pressure to get a review done, or tell any audience what narratives want to be heard.
And then there are some reviewers who cannot be trusted at all : )
Our wonderful journey of resonant air brought to us by the world of electromagnetism is such an amazing combination of the art and science of understanding listening, as fredrik said, it’s silly to fixate on just one or the other, when we can have both.
In the absence of greater knowledge regarding the electromagnetic world, our thinking ears and electrical measurements are the best tools we have to bring us closer to reality. Let’s just hone each one to its highest level of development, rather than cripple the journey with just one tool.
Amir, what of the fact that all along, you have only been measuring just the electrical half of electromagnetism. Can you explain the loss of logic in basing your entire belief system on that?
Huh? What do you call speaker and headphone testing? Devoid of magnetism? How do they make sound then (putting aside electrostatics and such).
Power supplies in audio gear use transformers so their magnetic properties are also encapsulated in the overall performance of a device.
The ending of that sentence is key: don't try to get ahead of the train. As an audiophile, your only concern should be what comes out of your audio gear. Not how some physical theory acts on the design of said equipment. You don't listen to that phenomenon. "
"Power supplies in audio gear use transformers so their magnetic properties are also encapsulated in the overall performance of a device."
The overall measured electricalperformance of the device, you mean. You're paltering again, Amir. You haven't answered the question - why have you based your entire belief system on just the electrical half of electromagnetism? The point is, you don't really know, because accurate measurement and analysis of the other profound side hasn't been invented yet.
It is ok, Amir, I no longer wish to help you understand what you have bureaucratically shut yourself off to. Your only contribution to your amazing world of music will be these trivial arguments and the incomplete results of electrical performance tests, years from now. It will not even matter that many audiophiles may be led down your narrow view - as evidenced by the likes of their comments, they are as perfunctory as you. The vital thing I have learned from our exchange is that you are unable to tell the difference between files of different resolution, in that listening test I referred you to. And it is not a leap of deduction to say neither do any of the others who prioritise measurements over listening ability.
How silly to attempt persuading any of you to put more effort into training your listening. I do not feel sorry for any of you, missing out on the amazing differences cables, and unmeasurable electromagnetic fields make.
Amir, I will be making a few more posts on this thread, for those who may not understand why you communicate as you do - as with listening ability, too many of us are hearing your same drum-beat of arrogance, indoctrination, and numbing dogma regarding the measurements of your limiting electrical performance tests. What we are hearing from you cannot be definitively measured either, but there is a science that has identified it.
You may want to have a read to understand yourself as well as you understand your half world of electrical performance tests.
This comes late, chayro, but I am now able to say what I have learned from/about Amir.
The first is that he does very thorough testing on the electrical performance of audio equipment, and that he understands the electrical side of audio reasonably well.
The second is that he firmly believes that everything evident in purely electrical measurements is sufficient to determine everything electromagnetism is about, as well is its effect on the time domain.
Thirdly, he avoids discussion on issues he does not have answers for, reducing everything and anything only to the narrowness of the things he does, and if pushed for a direct response, engages paltering, conflation, and prevarication, to avoid having to answer directly. When he has nothing intelligent left to say, he resorts to sealioning and the kind of trailer park humour he accuses others of.
Fourth, he is involved in the act of performance testing. It is about the regurgitation of answers, based on the known and the established. It is a bureaucratic task, but one that provides the place necessary for a particular kind of confidence to thrive.
Fifth, he is unable to tell apart music files of low and high resolution, and based on this lack of ability, determines that measurements in performance testing is all that is needed to determine what is heard, and what is not.
Finally, and most vitally, almost everything in the way he communicates, presents his experiences as complete, indisputable, and omnipotent; absolutely void of any possible error of judgement and correction, purely based on his knowledge on the electrical side of electromagnetism, and his lack of listening skills. The term used to describe such behaviour is narcissism. It is not a term pulled from conjecture, but entirely based on what he writes, the way he writes it, and the appeal to the infallibility with which he underlines it all.
What I do know of someone who lacks the ability to listen skilfully, is that they should not be allowed to overcompensate by persuading other less experienced audiophiles not to learn how to listen as well - it is wicked, ignorant and unbecoming of anyone aspiring to teach.
To objections over issues he has failed to address, he engages the constant refrain of “We know a ton about audio” which, true as it may be, has absolutely nothing to do with everything we do not know - his statements over issues of deeper debate, technical or conversational, are almost all examples of paltering, the appropriation of unrelated truths to justify the argument of an entirely different issue.
He conflates his position with that of a doctor, and then listening ability with that of medicine. And then takes the ultimate step of conflating the knowledge a doctor has with that he possesses. And finally, palters comment on his narcissistic behaviour with the truth of what doctors do. Then claims it is an insult to himself, when the term is used to describe exactly what he is.
Narcissism is defined by the Cambridge dictionary as “having too much interest in and admiration for oneself. Narcissistic people have a hard time seeing another person's point of view. ”TheMayo clinic defines narcissistic personality disorder as “a mental health condition in which people have an unreasonably high sense of their own importance. They need and seek attention and want people to admire them. People with this disorder may lack the ability to understand or care about the feelings of others. But behind this mask of extreme confidence, they are not sure of their self-worth and are easily upset by the slightest criticism.” Encyclopaedia Brittanica defines narcissists as those who “thrive on being recognised as an authority”, and narcissistic behaviour as being inclusive of “viewing oneself as exceptional, and engaging arrogance, feigned superiority, and aggressiveness upon failure to receive confirmation that others hold them in high regard."
Speaking to the indexes, tests, and abbreviations he seems to subscribe to so ardently, there is something known as the NPI, the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, that is widely used used to assess narcissistic personality disorder. It is widely known that those diagnosed with this disorder cannot be trusted to be involved in any kind of discussion which is productive, until the extent of their disorder is determined.
To sum it all, Amir knows a lot. From his measurements, we have discovered how certain manufacturers either fudge test results or leave them ambiguous, in the hope of better sales. We know how certain reviews do the same, to serve agendas that do disservice to the hobby. But, as is true of every imperfect human being alive, he does not know everything, which he will never acknowledge, as he has built he entire narrative and reputation on something that happened a long time ago, an experience that we each have had at some point in each our separate journeys – he couldn’t hear a difference between audio items that claimed so. This combined with his narcissistic personality disorder he developed over the years for whatever reasons, has created the reactions and communications now witnessed from him.
For the less personally offended, the incident of not having good listening skills would not have scarred so badly, but it would not have been easy recovery for the egotestical, obviously, and not having having better listening skills, electrical testing serves the easy way out. It has resulted in this little audio crusade against the entire spectrum of manufacturers in a hobby that is not a war, but which is treats with the seriousness of one, shallow reputation being at stake.
For the rest in wonderful hobby, developing listening skills are considerably more important than allowing our abilities to intelligently decide be instead determined by numbers and measurements of half the electromagnetic spectrum.
Thanks for your message - in truth, I did not make a statement that Amir says he knows everything, only that as an imperfect human being like the rest of us, that it is not possible for him to know everything about electromagnetism - something that he will never acknowledge in staking claim to his measurements. He says electrical testing yields every result we need to know whether a sound difference can be heard in equipment comparisons. That is the equivalent of saying that he knows everything about how electromagnetism affects the quality of sound waves arrive at our ears, just based on the electrical tests he conducts. It would be actually funny, if not for the increasing numbers of people who believe it to be true.
Then again, it is also true that narcissists, by virtue of their addictive, if misleading confidence, inspire the most followers.
You are absolutely correct that manufacturers should not be allowed to falsify specifications or get away with ambiguous claims. But in all fairness, neither can acoustic performance be claimed based on tests only on the electrical half of everything electromagnetism is. It would be hypocritical otherwise.
And I am not referring to basic magnetic flux here, but the profound complexity that a constantly changing electromagnetic field is, since the signal is carried as much in the magnetic field, as it is in the electrical current. We have not yet learned how to measure this, let alone understand its impact on sound quality.
There is so much we do not know about the relationship between electromagnetism and the nuance of sound reproduction. To ignore, let alone belittle this fact belies deep ignorance that runs counter to everything science truly is. Science concerns the investigation of experiences and questions we have yet to find answers for. Not the bureaucratic repetition of tests on things we already have proof of answers for.
Yes indeed, listening skill can be very subjective - those blind tests ever so referred to are as subjective as the best, because two variables exists in such tests - something that has not yet been acknowledged by those who champion it.
It was the reason why I suggested a listening test with just one variable, the listener. The sound files had two precisely determined resolutions, which the listener had to identify and tell apart. Direct and simple. Amir did not think much of the test because he could not hear the differences, and he accused those who might have done well as having benefitted from guesswork, despite the accuracy of a six for six correct answers falling well within his own threshold of acceptability. No answer from him when challenged.
I am a mere hobbyist and the technical knowledge Amir has in electrical matters far exceeds anything I could ever aspire to. But I can say that the observation of electromagnetic nature I am not yet able to explain, and the passionate questions and hypotheses that follow engage science to a far more profound degree than a performance testers tedious refrain that if it measures the same, it sounds the same.
Yes fredrik, there are indeed two sides to this amazing coin of electromagnetism - how divisive that Amir only fixates on the electrical half, the half his machines only read. Performance testing is not science. It is repetition of the known.
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