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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 1 response by reg19

reg19
82 posts
 

I think one has to separate out Amir’s approach from some diatribe one receives from others on that website.

To be fair to Amir: he has never recommended a measurements-only approach. If anything, he espouses that (properly conducted, level-matched) listening tests are more important. It is just that they are difficult to conduct for a casual listener in the manner he suggests.

He does weed out badly constructed snake oil in many occasions. 

 

However, after studying electronics engineering for 4 years and later working in a ‘measurements and calculations are everything’ world for a few decades, I still feel that they are necessary but not sufficient.

ASR asks to prove it. As a hobbyist who likes to listen to music to relax, I’m not interested in the effort.

I can make out differences between *certain* speaker cables though they measure identically (with our current measurement set), for example. Or, prefer the Holo May DAC to the beater measuring Topping D90SE.

 

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