Did Amir Change Your Mind About Anything?

I think he made me realize how unimportant measurements are. For one thing, I own the Magnepan LRSs. Somehow they sound great while measuring poorly. For another, those cheap DACs that measure great, are not, I found out.  Same thing with phono stages.  I love science but literally all that matters is how it sounds.

And as others said above, it shows how tribal and biased humans can be, among other things. It might be better as a study in human psychology.

If it sounds good why do any measurements matter?

Good measuring stuff often sounds bad and vice versa.  

For the engineer and for the geek factor it's fun but otherwise?  

But we want reassurance.  We don't believe our own ears.  

Actually in my case that's true because I can't hear much over 10Khz and a bunch of noise can happen above that.  So for instance, my Mani 1 sounds great to me but my daughter can hear the hiss.  And I tried the Mani 2 which has less hiss and returned it.  The female vocals were grainy.  That's a no go for me.  Yes it's quieter - for young ears - and the bass is a little better but I focus on female vocals. 

So the point is, it's how it sounds, to you.  

OTOH I'm re arranging my system and one pair of interconnects tests 0.1 ohm and the other jumps around due to the metal the plugs are made of. The good one is shiny gold and the other a more brassy gold.  Is it even gold?  Guess which ones I'll be using and which tossing.  

"So you needed measurements to tell you which pair of interconnects you keep? Blue pill vs. red pill. You couldn’t hear a difference by…. listening to them? Yeah, I know, shocking!"

Yeah this is an interesting one.  They may indeed sound the same but it's obvious that the conductivity of the plugs is better on the one.  The other reaches the same low impedance if I push and rub the meter leads onto the plug.  So it may be that most of the time the connection is strong enough to overcome this.  But much depends on the actual plug mechanical connection.  How tight it is.  The other interconnect plugs are made of actual gold.   I think the bad measuring ones are probably brass.  They are less likely to hold a good connection.

So here is a case where putting a meter on it and measuring is very instructive.  I'm not going to take a chance on the brass connectors that measure badly even though they may sound fine.  It's possible that they may not stay that way.

And I realize that I bought some crappy cables.  They looked sort of gold in the pics.  Fools gold.  

"I am curious, what cables were those two? Brand & model?"

Well, big surprise, there is no name on them, and I can’t find them in my order history on Amazon. They look more like brass than gold.

thyname

2,881 posts

06-25-2023 at 10:22pm

Got it. Understand. Perfectly clear now. Carry on. Keep on fighting 💪

Fighting? I’m not fighting but it seems like you want to. I just relayed my experience with a poor cable that I found by measuring. How is that fighting? Do you think I am lying? What is your problem?

You could have responded something like this " Yeah it makes sense that a brass connection plug could tarnish causing poor connectivity/conductivity" But instead it seems that you just want to bicker.

Too bad that there is no ignore function on this site....

The audio world is so confusing and frustrating that it makes us mad. Both ways mad. What’s that buzzing in my ears? It’s obviously all amir’s fault. There I feel better now. Now get off my lawn!

Yeah but what about the neutrinos?  Nobody checks for them.  I have a cable with special shielding .....and I'm starting a go fund me account......

They will be called No trino cables.

So mahgister,  I guess that you will not helping my go fund me account to help develop the "No trino" cables?

What if  told you that neutrinos cannot be measured?  Let's see Amir shoot that one down!   It's a foolproof scam, I mean plan.  

   😄

I'm joking.  

People want to believe in ghosts.  It's fun.  But others will have fun mocking those people for being so silly.

The adamant denier never sees the ghost.  The true believer sees it when nothing is there.  The open minded skeptic is the one best equipped to actually see a ghost. 

All I know is that I know more because of Amir.  That's always good.  Even if it causes internal conflict and confusion.  Thanks a lot Amir.  

laoman said....

"I bought my Dac at a hifi shop by listening to 7 different ones through the same equipment, with the same music and I had no idea what brand I was listening to or what it cost. The dealer was happy to go back and forth. I purchased the one that sounded second best, (I could not afford the best when I found out what it cost. ) I can tell you that the Topping I listened to sounded like crap with female voices. So do not tell me like some of your minions post, that all well measuring Dacs sound the same."

I for one believe you.  Imagine that.  Trusting how something sounds!    

And this is more valid than any charts, graphs, oscilloscope readings etc.   And the idea that it is not unless it was a double blind test etc takes the objectivity crowd off the cliff of absurdity.  And it's insulting to imply that somehow you are not listening correctly and are doing it wrong.   This is where the measurement crowd jumps the shark and gets ridiculous.  

"It doesn't matter if you are or are not invested in the outcome: you can still arrive at totally wrong conclusions.  All I have to do is make one product louder than the other and get you to say it sounds better even if you were primed to think it wouldn't.  And indeed, it can sound massively better with more detail, blacker backgrounds, etc". 

Yeah but I varied the volume while comparing.   I arrived at the right conclusion.  I heard it.  DIdn't need much other than common sense.  

I listened to them.  They were different.  

 Knowing the measurements before listening causes objectivists to be anything but objective. They are already biased.  

Amir said...."I do too!  There is no question that is what he perceived.  It is just that we don't know if that depended on the actual output of said DACs or other extraneous factors.  Our brain is a wonderful thing when it comes to manufacturing facts.  To make sure that is not happening, we only trust listening tests where only the sound is involved, not the rest of your senses. "

I understand what you are saying but he said that he did not know brand or price and still found a difference, and that's good enough for me.  It seems like you doubted his conclusions due to it not being a perfect blind test.  People find that insulting.  Rightly so.  

I just think that we need to give more credit to the imperfect listening tests that we all do.   I have sat and A/B' d between sources like phono stages and DACs and knowing what they are had no influence on how they sounded.   I wasn't invested either way.  I truly wanted to know how they compared.  Sometimes even forgetting which I had on which input.  Sometimes I wanted the less expensive one to sound better for instance.  And it didn't.

I guess my point is that, yes, we are subject to subjectivity and measurements can keep us a little more sober about that, but generally speaking our ears do a pretty good job, how it sounds to us is all that matters and measurements will not tell us that.  All that can be heard cannot be measured. And what we hear is more important than any measurement.  

In fact measurements are just another way to be fooled.  One might argue that knowing a piece measures well causes more bias than if we knew nothing about the measurements.  So in fact the objectivists may be more subjective and biased and deluded than those that do not know a thing about the measurements.  They think, oh, well, that DAC measured great on ASR so it must sound good.  So it sounds good to them.  

OK Amir, I will help the activity over at ASR.  Your impressive efforts here have won me over.

I'm going over there right now and argue that measurements mean next to nothing.

That should help.... 

:)

" Knowing the measurements before listening causes objectivists to be anything but objective. They are already biased. "

"Say that to your doctor next time he makes measurements of your health and then diagnoses what is wrong with you. Tell him to just trust his ears and hands. No need for X-ray, MRI, blood pressure, etc. You know, the measurement stuff that biases him. "

So you deny that knowing the measurements before listening may cause bias?

How could it be a blind test then? It’s worse than just physically seeing them and seeing what make they are or their price.

pennfootball71

85 posts

07-02-2023 at 05:29am

Amir is a troll

Well that was easy to type but completely wrong and trollish in itself.

Trolls don’t patiently answer multiple posts with substantive reasonable content and they don’t do a fraction as much for audio science as Amir does.

Amir said "People who claim they should listen first and measure second, just have it wrong. They will then be giving you a random subjective opinion"

Yeah that’s me, no I have it right.

Apparently you want to be biased before listening. I thought blind testing was scientific?

It is completely backwards to know the measurements beforehand. it basically insures being biased. Bizarre. Not very logical and makes me lose respect for your methods.  

What sticks out to me about the subjective/objective thing is things like the Magnepan LRS speakers which I and many others have and love yet measure poorly on ASR.   Are things like image size and room reflection dynamics of dipoles etc things that can be measured.   Can we show some objective measured thing that explains why many like the Maggies.   I think this is where the measurement approach fails.

So after all this we find that measurements are pretty useless for telling us how something will sound. So going to ASR to judge HI FI products is pretty useless. 

 Maggies sound terrible according to the measurements.  And cheap Topping DACs sound great because they measure that way.  And measuring before listening is the way to really hear.  How can one know to what to hear before seeing the specs.

Thank you Amir.  I've learned a lot. 

"I think it’s pretty pointless to argue against use of measurements to establish what is good sound reproduction. Note that good sound reproduction is different than good sound. One is objective the other subjective.

It’s also true that metrics alone do not tell the whole story. They are capable of getting things right but are often applied incorrectly or incompletely. It’s worth arguing that case by case but not that metrics are always the whole story or that they are of no value. It’s really not so complicated to understand. I find much of the content of this thread pretty useless. Maybe Amir’s site has more to offer. I’ll have to check it out more often."

Yes, correct, what virtually everyone agrees about.

The problem with this thread is due to one person. mahgister

mahgister ..... JUST STOP. Your neurotic verbosity is a drag. I along with nearly everyone else here ignores it.  

You are spamming this thread and site with endless BS that no one has the patience for. Go take a walk.  Get some fresh air. Learn about being concise.

Sorry dude but sometimes we all need some tough love.

Amir, I don't care how you make your money.  I for one do think you do it for the intellectual challenge and a sense of being honest and logical.  For good, not evil.  :)

That being said...

This is a highly specialized speaker that has poor general purpose. People fall in love with its spatial qualities due to dipole design and tall image it provides. So not surprised you speak as if it is perfect. But perfect it is not. Not remotely so.

I never said the LRS was perfect. It IS a perfect example of where measurements fail.

And again, you measured the speakers first and THEN listened?

Putting the cart before the horse and insuring your measurement philosophy bias.

So not only are measurements next to useless to determine how things sound but going by your biased limited view of a great speaker based on measurements could actually turn curious audiophiles away from a wonderful SOUNDING speaker.

So in fact, rather than doing a service here, you are doing a disservice.

And it’s amazing how I spoke all this truth without any impressive looking charts.

And now I’m left wondering even about cables........the one simple? thing that might make sense.

Amir said and even proudly bolded it...

"I don't trust any subjective review that is not grounded on measurements."

This says it all about your mindset.  And all one needs to know about your site.  You should put this in bold letters on the home page.  

 Your subjective review is worthless since you have predetermined how it SHOULD sound based on some numbers.   You've guaranteed to have a biased opinion.  It's worse than any placebo effect from the appearance of the speaker.  Good experiment in psycoacoustics though. 

As far as the LRS, no one needs the numbers to know the sub bass isn't there or that they are beamy.  Anyone that has ever heard them knows that.  They heard it.  

So to reiterate....  Measurements are next to useless to determine how a certain  HI FI product sounds.  They can actually mislead and knowing measurements beforehand guarantees the placebo effect which might help cheap DACs sound "better".

I agree Mitch, well said.  I’m just glad that measurements will tell us how an audio product will sound.

Well this is frustrating.  I agree with virtually everything said by everyone here except for the personal attacks on Amir.  Even with what Amir has said.  He is  focused on measurements but he's an engineer.  

What bothers me is that I want to argue and disagree but I can't.

And just to repeat, Amir has made me realize how little measurements actually matter.  I would not buy or avoid any mainstream audio product based on measurements except perhaps obvious things like watts and sensitivity.  Too many examples where none of the other crap matters and can actually lead one astray.

I should add that I love science and have degree in it so it's not like I'm a science denier.  

OK everyone stop now so that I have the last word.  

"So you are saying that you learn nothing from measurements of these two speakers?"

Yeah they have different frequency response charts by your methods.

I would avoid looking at that before listening so I know I don’t have a bias.

And flat FR is sometimes boring.

Virtually useless and perhaps harmful for deciding which sounds better.

Maybe I like resonances at those fregs.

I heard that Amir had a chart that compared the relative value of measurements based on type of audio product.   So that things like cables and DACS could be 100% judged by measurements and with things like speakers that % was less.

When I say that I learned how little measurements matter it is speaking relatively.   I used to think much higher of them, that they told more than they do.   I do believe they have value.

I would like to see this idea of nuance and relative value of measurements addressed by Amir.    A consideration of the grey areas.

"This is selling us way too short.  No device is strictly evaluated based on measurements alone.  "

I understand that.  But what is the confidence level of measurements by audio product type.  On ASR there was such estimates.  What are they are now?

I know that you do not think that measurements alone can tell us how exactly a DAC or speaker will sound.   And that certain audio products are better defined by measurements than others.

I would just like to hear from you something like " DACs are 90% defined by measurements and speakers perhaps 50%.

You know some nuance, grey area and a little humility that maybe all these measurements are limited in what they can say about how a product will sound.  

"That is a comment I made in passing which is being misunderstood by you and even some reviewers (Darko comes to mind). The point I was making that in some cases like speakers and especially headphones, correlation of measurements with listening preference while strong, is not conclusive."

Yeah that's what I was talking about.  I don't misunderstand you.   You admit that measurements can't reliably tell what sounds good.  More so with speakers and headphones and less with cables and DACs. 

So I'm just wondering if you would hazard a guess as to how well measurements will determine how the different audio product categories will actually sound to people.  How much they like them.