Did Amir Change Your Mind About Anything?

@amir_asr As a former pro studio musician, I guess I do not fit the mold. LOL.

Nonetheless, as I stated before, if one has little experience with the sound of the ’real’ live instrument in an un-amplified setting, then I guess relying on someone else’s expectation of what the instrument sounds like, and therefore the measurements that are assigned to this sound, is the choice that is left. IMO, if something sounds good and measures poorly, then the measurement device is off, the same applies if something sounds bad to our ears and the measurements are great...then the measuring device is measuring the wrong thing.

Personally, I trust my ears above all else, regardless of what the measurements may or may not be showing me. Same goes for when i pick an instrument to play, my ears ( and well, my hands also) are the final decider, regardless of other ’expert’ opinions as to the instrument quality ( or lack thereof).YMMV.

1. The said Topping audio chain is not as transparent as you thought it was

2. Your ability to detect differences between components and cables is impaired by either your measurements results based bias or your ears just don’t work as well as convince yourself they do.

Ah...the old "the problem is your gear or your ears" refrain from the Golden Ears.

Really...it's the only response they have, which is why you see it over and over and over and over and.....

I can hear angels singing on the Kinda Blue record.  What, it's not measurable and you can't hear them?  Well, it couldn't be my imagination...so it must be your gear isn't resolving enough or your hearing isn't acute enough.

The cozy, unfalsifiable world of the audiophile...

When I play an acoustic instrument (guitar, for example), I hear it a certain way:  I am holding it, my ears are above and behind the soundboard, vibrations are being transferred to my body, etc.  I am not hearing it as the audience does.  I do have considerable control of what the audience hears, but it is inconvenient and disorienting trying to hear what I sound like through monitors while performing.  I am more relaxed and musically lucid if I don't obsess over what I must be sounding like and just play for my own sensory satisfaction, trusting that my presentation is set up competently.  I am seeking emotional connection, not audio perfection.

Perhaps this could help explain why musicians generally are not audiophiles.  As a musician, I have an adequate hifi.  I have heard more startling and revealing systems, but after the novelty wears off I end up allowing myself to be engaged in the program (lyrics, melody, harmonic content and rhythm).  If the hifi is too good, I find it harder to subject myself to the emotional content and end up just admiring the equipment.

The discussions on ASR are interesting, but the objective testing has little to do with how I select components or listen to music.  What I look for is a general level of excitement in a review, or a suggestion of possible synergy with equipment I already own.  That may provoke me to find out more about a component.  So, yes, ASR has been valuable to me – if not "changing" my mind certainly expanding my mind with new considerations and possibilities.

@prof measurements are important and that’s without a doubt. But alone, the measurements cant tell you how a component will sound or what sonic changes a cable can make.
Testing Nordost Tyr 2 on a Topping DAC driving a Topping amp using headphones won’t tell you much for few reasons - Topping components aren’t high end by any means and listening in headphones, no matter how good they are, can’t give you the full scope of a tested component and can’t reveal changes to imaging and soundstage simply because headphones don’t do soundstage like a pair of high end speakers can set up with right components in the properly treated room. It’s just not the same. And there’s no way around it.
Amir, having a very decent system from what I understand with mega-buck components and speakers, chose to test the cable in much less than ideal configuration. And this is not just with that cable. There are more instances of such listening tests conducted by Amir. If you tell me this isn’t a definition of flawed testing, I don’t know what is. 

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.