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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
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cleeds
5,947 posts
 
amir_asr

You have now turned this into a test of manhood ... I rarely if ever see audiophiles participate in such tests.

Your obsession with your manhood isn’t something you should share here.

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maxwellseq
31 posts
 

 

mapman

 

I can only speak for myself but the problem at hand for most here on this thread I think is how to best choose what to buy. Measurements are very useful for that. Explaining why human hearing is so complex is totally useless towards that end. It is useful to understand how human hearing works to help better understand why we hear what we do. But these are two totally different use cases. What is of value always depends on context. So there really should be no debate. Two totally different sets of information used for two different but related purposes. Best to understand it all but no point in arguing one versus the other. One topic at a time please!

Well put

mahgister's avatar
mahgister
13,011 posts
 
It isn’t though. People here want to know what gear to buy that gives them the best audio performance.
 
If they want to check the gear performance and compared the designer specs with your VERIFICATION and opinion about the specs really measured, they will do as me and consult your ASR site and thank you for the review about specs ....
 
But on this thread it is not at all what all is about... Here it is about objectivist versus subjectivist... And it is about your claim that verification of specs measured said all there is to said about gear choice... I thank you as i said for your OBJECTIVE INFORMATION... I dont thank you for your measuring ideology extended as a theory who claim to be able to predict what is the " musicality" of an amplifier with ONLY A LIMITED SET of linear MEASURES, I DID NOT THANK YOU WHEN YOU PUT all audiophiles IN THE SAME TRASH BIN BECAUSE THEY DONT BUY YOUR HEARING AND LISTENING THEORY...
 
 
You put forward a paper that uses artificial tones to see if the listener can detect simultaneously the time and frequencies of those artificial tones. Nothing in that research included or involved testing amplifiers.
 
Van Maanen said explictly that he use real MUSIC signals not artificial tones or continuous sine wave to test his design and measure their behaviour under stress ....And he described in his articles how he designed his own amplifiers... He is not in the job of comparing amplifiers as you did with some set of linear measures... He design his own , he does not debunk gear market as a job as you did .... He says it clearly here : " All stages of an amplifier should be as linear as possible when Fourier theory is to be applied to approximate its response to music signals". Not artificial tones..
 
Here what you said is so distorted compared to what i spoke about, it is COMPLETELY out of what i claim about Van Maanen opinion :
 
You and the Van Maanen’s brief write up which you keep quoting have theorized that this research gives the ability for people to tell two amplifiers apart which are pristine as far as measurements. Not a single listening test of such amplifiers has been presented by you or him. You expect us to make a massive leap from a test of artificial tones to accepting this.
 
I nevear said nor Van Maanen that his research gives the ability to people "to tell two amplifiers apart which are pristine as far as measurements"... You describe you own job here... Van Maanen dont do the same job as you...He dont debunk gear specs and do not tell people what is better or not for them IN SPITE OF THEIR OWN HEARING EXPERIENCE... You do that, not Van Maanen... This physicist only describe how he think about his own design parts in relation to one another to satisfy "musical qualities" as himself hear them and he try to realize a design that will take into account the non linear and time dependant way that the ears related himself to music... The name of his company is "temporal coherence"... After all that he propose his finished product to a general listening tests among potential customers or reviewers...
 
 

You talk about science. In science we postulate a theory. We can then either show that mathematically to be correct, i.e. Einstein, or practically correct by experimentation. You have shown neither. There is no mathematical proof that two amplifiers that measure exceptionally clean in my testing have audible artifacts that are clear to folks like you. And you certainly haven’t provided any controlled tests that demonstrate that.This is the main issue I keep bringing up. I have explained why you can’t leap from the one research paper with artificial tones to testing of audio products.

 
As i said above Van Maanen use real musical signals not artificial tone as you repeat erroneously many times... Consult the article..
Now you accuse me to not proposing a mathematical theory of hearing? Are you kidding me ? i have the impression you dont know at all what you speak about now... The ecological theory of hearing explicitly suppose that the mathematical Fourier frequencies based theory is unsufficient to describe sound qualities as perceived by humans... Because sound qualities are INTEGRAL QUALITATIVE WHOLES, AFFORDANCES said Gibson, the ears/brain has learned to identify and perceive and USE in evolutive history ( because perceiving sound is related to the way human produce sound ) ...
 
I make appeal to this ecological theory because you criticized all audiophiles TOGETHER in a single block as being ALL wrong because they supposed that "musicality" exist in some design when they listened to it even if the design do not correspond with your limited set of linear measures ...you negate that audiophile OPINION as pure ILLUSION... This is why my critic came for, against your idea that well measured specs as you define it in the material design suffice to provide an amplifier with a good musicality... Your claim is not wrong in itself, a design must be well behaved and working in a predictive way linearly... But i criticized your claim that the set of measure used to analyse the design is all there is that is necessary... The set of measures CAN BE IMPROVED and the design too can BE IMPROVED ... and even then, we will need LISTENINGS to verify if the improved design correlate with the right set of measures to tell all the story there is to tell...In a word we must train and trust our ears... Measuring is not enough...
 
And no, appealing to authority in the case of Van Maanen being a "physicist that knows what he is doing" means nothing. Physics education doesn’t teach you anything with regards to audible differences between amplifiers. By that notion, any physicist audiophile could say anything and we would have to believe it which is obviously wrong.
Here i apologize to say it you are a bit pathetic ...I insisted in the beginning about the bio and expertise of Van maanen because , remember, that at the beginning you described his article as leaflet of marketing publicity to sell his amplifier... You try an ad hominem attack to minimize his sayings.. ... i insisted that they were serious articles describing his way to understand design of amplifier and speakers if we take into account the psycho-acoustics about the ears non linear structure in the time dependant domain...By the way if you read his bio he learn electronics in his teen years and ALWAYS designed amplifiers all his life as a hobby in paralleel to his works in physics of fluids... As you know acoustic is related to fluid mechanics.. Then after your ad hominem attack i feel that i must establish his real status as an expert... I am not an expert but i know how to read... I use Van Maanen and Magnasco and Oppenheim and Gibson, to CORRECT your claim about hearing and measure...They never correlate as you claim you can do it...Then Audiophiles are not all pure deluded people because they trust their ears... ... But you are right they must inform themselves about measures yes.. but objectivist fanatics mocking audiophile must study psycho-acoustic and hearing theory... You get my point now ? i am not a subjectivist nor an objectivist,... I think and hear by myself and i try to inform myself even by reading your specs analysis for which i thank you because it is useful...But i dont buy your propaganda about blind test and audiophiles  all put in one bag together..
 
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