Did Amir Change Your Mind About Anything?

Wire directionality! Now we’re talking! Measure that!🙃 Truly a game changer.  Does a crystal ball help? 

@amir_asr Well, you can’t mix non-science and science.

So tell your stories but not to me please. Come back when you can at least be bothered to do an AB test without your eyes involved.

Yes we can. And, there it is for all to see. My goal was to further expose more of your self-inflicted BS to everyone here. Wishing you best of luck on the future! 

Exactly. I believed something "told" once. Thought I’d put it to the test myself. It was about a really great measuring DAC on said forum. All looked good on measurements and graphs. I took the plunge, went out and bought it with intent it would be a long term keeper DAC. Played it for just under two weeks. Unfortunately, ended up sending it back for a full refund and kept a different unit that measured worse. 

Sad as if you had spent a modicum of effort performing a blind test, you would have arrived at a very different conclusion.  But no, you wanted to involve your eyes and ignore elasticity of your brain and its poor recall memory.

Reminds me of someone who sent me a Schiit Yggdrasil $2,500 DAC.   He told me it sounded much better than a well measuring Topping DAC.  I asked him how he tested.  He gave me his tracks and said he used Stax headphones which I also had.  

I went to setup an AB test and it was clear that levels were not matched between the two.  I matched them and then performed a blind test.  With normal volume, there was no difference whatsoever between the Topping and Schiit Yggdrasil.  Again I replicated his entire setup.  And this was the conclusion.

The problem continues to be that people believe in random testing of the gear where many factors are involved beyond the fidelity of the two products.  And then complain when their observations don't match science and engineering.  Well, you can't mix non-science and science.  

So tell your stories but not to me please.  Come back when you can at least be bothered to do an AB test without your eyes involved.

Measurements are all I use, so they are very useful, but for you prior to review, a bias. 

I am not reviewing your speakers.  I want to see the measurements so can put some meat behind the bold claims you are making regarding their performance.  Your unwillingness again shows you either don't have proper measurements or that they show too poor of a performance.

You are also contradictory.  You have no issue biasing people with the way the speaker looks. or how it is designed.  But ask for some objective data and oh, "that will bias you."  Well, hell you already biased everyone.

It  is my experience too... Thanks for your post .

..

@amir_asr Here is the problem: there is no proof point that the assertion of said designer is true. You say he did "extensive listening tests." I guarantee that you have no idea what that testing was let alone that it was extensive. What music was used? What power level? What speakers? How many listeners? What is the qualifications of the designer when it comes to hearing impairments?

Story is told and believed. Maybe it is true. Maybe it is not. After all, if he saw a significant measurement error, logic says the odds of it sounding good is low. After all, why else would you tell that story? If the odds are low, then we better have a documented, controlled test that shows that. Not just something told.

Exactly. I believed something "told" once. Thought I’d put it to the test myself. It was about a really great measuring DAC on said forum. All looked good on measurements and graphs. I took the plunge, went out and bought it with intent it would be a long term keeper DAC. Played it for just under two weeks. Unfortunately, ended up sending it back for a full refund and kept a different unit that measured worse. This other worse measuring unit sounded so much better and was notably more engaging to my ears - for half the price. My ears, my preference, is #1. Summary, what measured better did not sound better. End of story for me. And, preference can vary from one person to the next, no matter what the graph wants to show.

Thanks to those in business who understand this and offer a helpful refund policy. Not everyone is going to like the sound of their designs. 

Do you play idiot or do you think i am an idiot ?...

Stop...

The point is not about Van Maanen specific design value...

The point of the discussion is about the non linear relation between measures and listening evaluation FOR ANY PRODUCT... We dont speak about the market for your method... We speak about the meanings of Magnasco and Oppenheim crucial experiments implications which experiment you dismiss without any shame and falsely  as anecdotal  ... You could not object anything to my interpretation and you play theater with me now... I will not go further... I am not a clown in a piece written by you where you pretend not to understand for the gallery and put in front of all some points missing completely the main argument...

The center of my argument is the articles of Magnasco and Oppenheim... Their conclusion falsify your claims that a limited set of linear measured will always predict Qualitative musical qualities... Your set of measures is not complete and being well and useful for the standard design needs but they never will replace trained hearings ... PERIOD...

@mahgister

ANY DEESIGNER USE SINE WAVE PULSE ...Van Maanen too... But he use also real music busts ... Is it too much difficult to understand why ?

There is nothing there to understand. You have no information on what music was used. How the testing was done. Who were the listeners. What was compared to what. You are asking me to believe in something that even you don’t know about.

There are hundreds of things that effect the sound and can be heard by most anyone on a good system and these things do not change the measurements of the DUT.  You can give me 10 Purifi amps that all measure the same.  I will mod each one sound way, way different from each other.  These amps will all measure the same.....exactly the same......but they all sound different.  The objectivists do not believe this.....they will argue and argue but they will never listen to equipment with mods and see if there is a difference......they say the same thing about cables off the floor, cables, footers, other tweaks, amp stands, etc. to infinity.

Just yesterday I was tweaking my system and it sounded kind of dry and recessed.  I had heard Cat Stevens here sounding much better......However, I was listening with the cover off.  Before, I felt the cover on the unit made it sound too fat and rolled off.  However, that was really a problem with the amp module that I corrected last week.......so, I put the cover back on and the sound changed dramatically.  His voice was now way bigger sounding and everything was more real.....really MOVED me.  

Without listening tests (and they do not need to be blind or double blind.....unless you are deaf or double deaf....he he) you have no idea of what something will sound like.  I can remember what something sounded like years later......really!  I do not have golden ears......I just listen.  You come to my house and I will demonstrate tons of things that alter the sound.....and none of it can be measured.....this is the truth the objectivists (who do not listen) will fight and fight.  These kinds of threads never go anywhere becasue the Amir type people just keep pounding on their EE bibles....saying the same thing over and over.  This game is way, way more complex than measurements.  I was one of the first people on the planet to do straight wire bypass testing on 7 inch pieces of wire (back in the late 70s).  None of the wires sounded as transparent and pure as the half inch reference.....not even close.  We have much better wires today that would be very close.  I did not even know about wire directionality back then (every wire....whether solid core or stranded..... (no matter if it is PCOCC or ordinary copper wire) sounds different when you reverse the direction of the wire.  Did I say this game was infinite?  Well, it is.  The measurement people make like it is so simple.....it is not.   Doing serious listening tests on a super system is critical to KNOWING ANYTHING about sound.

Now measurements of speakers are not useful because they bias people?

Measurements are all I use, so they are very useful, but for you prior to review, a bias. It shows in every speaker review you do. JA and Erin pointed this out to you, the latter you banned.

The only thing you’ll need for a listening test is your 2 ears, the same ones that can hear Class D bass vs AB. No 10% volume thing will be allowed though.

@soundfield you look silly. You call out @amir_asr and then don’t answer. smh

@mahgister 

ANY DEESIGNER USE SINE WAVE PULSE ...Van Maanen too... But he use also  real music busts ... Is it too much difficult to understand why ?

There is nothing there to understand.  You have no information on what music was used.  How the testing was done. Who were the listeners.  What was compared to what.  You are asking me to believe in something that even you don't know about.

Hopelessly biasing you like your reviews.

Since a garage show operation can't have better measurements (from your limited understanding) , have no fear.

Now measurements of speakers are not useful because they bias people?  Which way?  They make people think they are bad?

"Why?" You haven’t covered the "what." You said people shouldn’t use measurements to assess fidelity of amplifiers.

Why putting in my mouth what i never said... You are in complete lack of arguments about my main point in hearing theory ?

I never said that measures dont matter, i said measures cannot replace listening , nor in evaluation nor in design process...

I showed you that your own expert witness in two occasions used tones and measurements. And that the disconnected sine waves in his paper has zero resemblance to any music. How come he can do it but you complain about me?

Another distortion of what i said and of what Van Maanen said...You repeat that without being able to refute my point about hearing theories are you too frustrated?

ANY DESIGNER USE SINE WAVE PULSE ...Van Maanen too... But he use also real music bursts ... Is it too much difficult to understand why he use the two?

You are so frustrated you invented contradictions which had no relation with hearing theories and Fourier methods and the qualitative aspects of hearings .. ... Anybody can read Van Maanen articles ...

Really, it is the holy grail audiophile claim that "something that measures bad sounds good." As to shout "science doesn’t matter."

Another falsities you put in my mouth ... Are you just a marketer now or have you retain some scientific biases ?

Are you speaking to ME or to a crowd?

I spoke ONLY about science here, Magnasco and Oppenheim and Van Maanen are scientists not marketers, and Gibson is a science genius in the psychology of the visual field..

Then why speaking to ME : "science does not matter" as if i was the most idiotic here...

I NEVER said that "something that measure bad will sound good"...This is the opposite of your claim about measure... what i wrote and try to demonstrate is that because hearing cannot be explained by Fourier method which are used for the best in material design , trained listenings is always necessary as evaluation and in the design process , as was necessary to implement in the design process the right Fourier conditions to be able to predict a well behave working by each designed parts...

In a word good measures are not LINEARLY linked to good sounds.. And bad measures are not linearly linked to bad sounds... Why ? because no set of measures is COMPLETE and perfect concerning all aspests of design ... And because we dont understand completely the relation between our tools and hearing...

You miss that essential part in Van Maanen articles ?

I actually think it is possible to show pathological cases where the above is true but folks are not even trying. So trusting they are that people will just believe the salesman/engineer and give them the ticket to produce less peformant amplifiers while charging so much more for them! It is such inverted logic and remarkable that it works with people.

Fortunately this is changing. We are making that change. We are taking some control of our destiny and driving toward proper, transparent audio gear that can be shown to be so.

 

Sorry but you spoke as a seller yourself more and more it seems ... You market your own methodology as truth...You did not bother to answer my hearing theory explanations which are a refutation of your HUBRIS and claims that your idea of "transparency" is all there is in audio listening evaluation  and all come from your  limited set of measures... Your listening test and blind test are there only to debunk any opposition..

But the evaluation by listening is necessary even for parts and complete systems... And a sine wave trhough an audio system dont tell all the story there is to tell to the ears... Music matter...

i will not wait for future answers... You never adressed my objections and anybody can read them and see for himsdelf that you are unable to contradict my points..And now you did not speak to me personnally but you speak for an IMAGINARY crowd ...

i learned a lot trying to explain these things to you...

But when you explain to someone a truth that contradict his way of living, nothing will convince him... i like to discuss too much😊... I miss my students after my retirement ... But it is no more possible to go further, you cannot and dont want to understand... For you Van Maanen is a seller and Oppenheim and Magnasco experiment is a mere  anecdote... You are not interested in hearings theory, you play with toys...

Thanks for the discussion ..

my best to you...

What is your fear of posting measurements

Hopelessly biasing you like your reviews.

Since a garage show operation can't have better measurements (from your limited understanding) , have no fear.

and results of controlled tests?  Do they not exist?  Are they not flattering?  

Stay tuned for a Youtube vid after PAF 2024

Duke it out?? You're going to do a public listening test with your favorite speakers.

Both you and the Youtube audience should have lots of fun. Its listening to music Amir, not an octagon cage match. Have no fear.

What is your fear of posting measurements and results of controlled tests?  Do they not exist?  Are they not flattering?  

@mahgister

Why did Amir got it wrong ?

"Why?" You haven’t covered the "what." You said people shouldn’t use measurements to assess fidelity of amplifiers. I showed you that your own expert witness in two occasions used tones and measurements. And that the disconnected sine waves in his paper has zero resemblance to any music. How come he can do it but you complain about me?

Answer is that sine waves are a subset of music. If an amplifier is high fidelity, it better ace the simple signals. If it manages to screw that up, why do you hang your hat on music?

Really, it is the holy grail audiophile claim that "something that measures bad sounds good." As to shout "science doesn’t matter." Well, for the millions of times this is stated, not one person has provided a proper listening test to prove this.

I actually think it is possible to show pathological cases where the above is true but folks are not even trying. So trusting they are that people will just believe the salesman/engineer and give them the ticket to produce less peformant amplifiers while charging so much more for them! It is such inverted logic and remarkable that it works with people.

Fortunately this is changing. We are making that change. We are taking some control of our destiny and driving toward proper, transparent audio gear that can be shown to be so.

Duke it out?? You're going to do a public listening test with your favorite speakers.

Both you and the Youtube audience should have lots of fun. Its listening to music Amir, not an octagon cage match. Have no fear.

I have 2 that handle 330lbs and have done such testing for a while, both mono and stereo. You can't know any of this ensconced inside your little kingdom.

You only need to concern yourself about one thing, taking a controlled listening test in public.

PAF 2024

So no measurements are in our future?  Nor any documented case of above shuffler being used?  Your only interest is to duke it out with me at a show?  Is that right?  

@raysmtb1 he is not doing this for free. Laughable. He has a patreon. Every single review asks for donations. He doesn’t disclose how much the website makes but it’s surely not nothing. 

It is for "nothing."  Actually less than nothing. There is no business plan that would support what I am doing.  I just bought a $22,000 dummy load to emulate reactive loads for speaker testing.  You know how many donations it would take just to get that money back?  You didn't see me going and getting sponsorships from companies to do that as others do.  Members expressed interest in more tests, I agreed and wrote the check -- in a declining economy no less where our investments are worth much less than a year ago.  

When someone sends me gear to test it, I almost always pay to ship it back.  By your logic, I should keep coughing that up out of my pocket so I can't be accused of doing something for money.  

And let's say I didn't ask for donations.  Which one of the arguments in this thread would go away?  Answer is none.  Complainers will complain.  

Fact is that your fellow audiophiles are the ones suggested that I accept donations.  I thought about it and I agreed it would help expand the work, allowing me to test things that I would not otherwise test. 

If you think this is a money making venture, why don't you make an offer to buy it from me?  Remember, you would have to buy all the gear, learn to use them and produce near daily reviews.  And come to a place here to defend your work and personal reputation.  I would love to hand this off to someone else and go and enjoy my other hobbies. 

2. Build the turntable or shuffler to handle large and heavy speakers.

I have 2 that handle 330lbs and have done such testing for a while, both mono and stereo. You can't know any of this ensconced inside your little kingdom.

You only need to concern yourself about one thing, taking a controlled listening test in public.

PAF 2024

That won’t matter to your ears in a controlled listening test. Your speakers measure well, rank highly in controlled listening and cost more. Its seems you would have zero to fear.

That’s right. My Revel Salon 2s have excellent measurements and perform just as well in controlled listening tests. This sharply increases others liking them. John Atkinson at his talk at RMAF was asked what was his favorite speaker after testing and listening to 750 of them. His answer? Revel Salon 2:

https://youtu.be/j77VKw9Kx6U

He says: "I wept before I had to send them back."

Of course, they have to perform given how expensive they are.

Against this landscape, you want to just jump into a ring and compete. I suggest while you are waiting a year for PAF audio show that you

1. Send your speaker with a $2,000 check to Workwyn folks to properly measure your speaker. Listen to their feedback and correct errors they find. For a bit more money, they can even test your drivers using laser Interferometer and such.

2. Build the turntable or shuffler to handle large and heavy speakers. My speakers weigh 120 pounds each. It is non trivial to swap it against other speakers which I assume are just as heavy. We have a member who uses an engineering friend to build him one for bookshelf speakers. You can contact and chat with him on challenges he faced.

3. Perform such blind tests yourself. Don’t just use yourself as a listener. Invite a few local audiophiles and put them through the test. Put in a control (really bad speaker) to weed out listeners who clearly can’t tell the good from bad.

Once you do these things -- which any speaker designer must do -- then I say you are ready to put people through a public blind test. For that, you don’t need me. Just have visitors go through it and collect the data across the population. Again, put the control in there to make sure people know what they are doing.

But really, the show is not the educational part. All the other stuff before that is what you need to do. An Olympic swimmer doesn’t become a champion if he just waited for the Olympics to come. You need to put in the work before.

• he posts scientific information 
• got a bad review scientifically 
• Scientifically it was in the top 10 and all the reviews

Anyone who listens to something and reports on it is doing it....scientifically.

All the best,
Nonoise

@raysmtb1 he is not doing this for free. Laughable. He has a patreon. Every single review asks for donations. He doesn’t disclose how much the website makes but it’s surely not nothing. 

You are right and i welcome all Amir information...

my disagreement with him is not about his free measuring verification but about hearing theories and the relation between measures and audible qualities evaluation...

I still can’t figure out why so many people get bent out of shape with Amir. I see the measurements as one part of the equation. Then I check peoples reviews and use that as the other part of the equation. He’s doing all this for free and all he gets his headaches from people who don’t like when he posts scientific information that might be less than flattering to a piece of equipment. So what’s the big deal?

I still can’t figure out why so many people get bent out of shape with Amir. I see the measurements as one part of the equation. Then I check peoples reviews and use that as the other part of the equation. He’s doing all this for free and all he gets his headaches from people who don’t like when he posts scientific information that might be less than flattering to a piece of equipment. So what’s the big deal? You bought a piece of equipment that got a bad review scientifically but you still like how it sounds. Well it’s not gonna be the first time that you will buy some thing that hasn’t reviewed well scientifically  but if you like how it sounds that’s your business… who cares? The last 10 purchases I have made I have looked at Amir’s website to see if there was any information on his website that would help me make a decision. The last one was a DAC  that I bought called the Okto 8. It got really great measurements and I didn’t look for how it sounded from Amir.  I went and looked at other websites on the Internet and read reviews. I bought the unit and was very happy with it. In my book it passed both tests. Scientifically it was in the top 10 and all the reviews I read were all very positive.. I don’t see the problem… so you don’t like his style but he still is giving you very valuable information for free. I think that his website is a winner and I hope that he does it for a long time because I consider him to be a trustworthy guy.

@soundfield why won’t you show your measurements?

To wit, you haven't even post a measurement of the speakers you sell.  Some cost as high as $15,000 yet all we have is a picture of them. 

That won't matter to your ears in a controlled listening test. Your speakers measure well, rank highly in controlled listening and cost more. Its seems you would have zero to fear.

But yes, there are some people who are extremist in both camp. As I have explained and show, @soundfield is one of them. They give our cause a bad new and I am sure the same is true of some in your camp.

So that's a yes at PAF 2024? A controlled listening test with you as a participant.

What would you have to fear vs a "garage show operation"?

It should at minimum make for a fun Youtube video ;-)

Great, then you shouldn't avoid at all costs a controlled listening text vs your speakers at PAF 2024 correct?

No, it is not "great." I am not the one that has to work to demonstrate the value of what you are selling.  That is your job.

To wit, you haven't even post a measurement of the speakers you sell.  Some cost as high as $15,000 yet all we have is a picture of them.  Post some measurements as starters.  Then write an article on any formal listening tests you have performed.  Once we have these, then maybe we care to see what you have to offer.  Until then, what you are or are not selling is not remotely important to me.

It’s not so much about what you do in your site, which has clearly value, but it’s your (and your followers’) campaign in all audio forums to shut down every subjective discussion (such a hobbyist simply sharing their listening impressions with each other, on anything audio related).

Those shut down requests have been repeated made regarding my posts here. I am not seeing you react negatively towards those.

But yes, there are some people who are extremist in both camp. As I have explained and show, @soundfield is one of them. They give our cause a bad new and I am sure the same is true of some in your camp.

We need to get beyond that and judge the here and now. I am fielding a ton of hostility from a number of posters in this thread and others like it. Which I can take as you can well see. But you can’t complain in this context why some objectivists do this and that.  Both camps need to stick to what they can demonstrate as proof and value add as opposed to angry responses.

Two conflicting statements in one single paragraph: keep the subjectivity in audio, but then intervene so that very subjectivity (I.e anecdotes) does not “rule the world”. Hmmm….

Subjectivity can 100% rule the audio world!  Have every manufacturer with claims of audio superiority provide controlled listening tests where only the ear is involved and I will retire from what I am doing and get more gardening done.

What you want is different: you want the self-serving views of a designer be the arbiter of what is right and good instead of relying on the ears of a few of your fellow audiophiles in a controlled test.  I just can't join you in that nor can huge swath of the audiophile community.

We want unbiased results and data.  Why is this so hard to understand?

In contrast, garage show operations like yours will make a crude gated measurement or two and call it the day.  

Great, then you shouldn't avoid at all costs a controlled listening text vs your speakers at PAF 2024 correct?

It doesn’t make sense to me that someone who bases everything on numbers and metrics would have any need to censure others armed mainly with words.

Unless  there is bad behavior involved. That needs to be addressed in all cases, though increasingly these days it is not.

Forum rules should cover what constitutes bad behavior. If not that is an omission and should be fixed.

@amir_asr : my last comment on this thread as I realized (after being told privately by a couple of people here) that I am simply providing you an opportunity for more of your propaganda. On this you said:

No one is trying to take out the subjectivity from audio. The entire science of speaker and headphone testing relies on it extensively. Problem with using the ear in evaluating things is that it can be difficult to do it properly. So what to do? Give up and let any and all anecdotes rule the world? No.

Two conflicting statements in one single paragraph: keep the subjectivity in audio, but then intervene so that very subjectivity (I.e anecdotes) does not “rule the world”. Hmmm….

It’s not so much about what you do in your site, which has clearly value, but it’s your (and your followers’) campaign in all audio forums to shut down every subjective discussion (such a hobbyist simply sharing their listening impressions with each other, on anything audio related). Basically, my (read: Amir’s) way or the highway. It is clear to me you have some kind of urge to fight every single subjective discussion anywhere in the internet, audio forums. The very fact of you posting extensively here in Audiogon , on this thread, while you own the most popular audio site in the world (according to you). You are indeed on a mission, and like all good missionaries throughout history, you need to go places, to spread the word, convert the heretics

Passing tests?    That sounds hard….

@nevada_matt 

what is “my kind”?

The only thing I think I know is your name: matt.  Tell me more about how you evaluate the sound of audio systems and I can answer more.

Amir keeps on posting that graph on trained vs. untrained listeners. What is a trained listener...someone who has passed the Harmon test, and who now believes he/she can tell what a musical sound sounds like, better than the ’unwashed’ masses. 

Harman offers that training tool for anyone who cares to use it.  I highly encourage you to at least try it before opining this way.  Until then, let me explain what it is.

You are presented with music that has an EQ applied to it.  You get to tell what that filtering is.  It starts easy with very wide band filters but progressively gets narrower and hence more difficult.  With practice, your hearing acuity for tonal errors improves and with it, reliable ability to determine colorations in speakers.

Importantly, the test has nothing to do with "harman" or any speaker or technology.  It is a pure test of whether you can tell what coloration a speaker imparts -- precisely what we want to determine in such tests.

FYI, after just limited amount of training using above software, I attended a gathering at Harman of top acousticians.  Dr. Olive took us to their listening room and played the training test.  Everyone got to level 2 or 3 but from there, they became silent as they could no longer detect the differences.  I went to level 5 and 6 to shock of everyone there.  Before you think I am gloating, Dr. Olive sailed way past me with incredible ease!  Here is a picture of him at the meeting doing this:

You can faintly see the image of the training software on the screen. 

Some things need proper training.  You can't be self-thought in everything especially when you have not passed any test to determine what you really know.  The reviewers got tested.  They didn't know what they were doing.

@amir_asr again just shows his true passive aggressive, elitist, god complex self.

what is “my kind”?

Anytime a review includes not just the numbers but the reviewers opinions based on using the product that is always best. Stereophile does that, though I do think that inexpensive products that measure well undermine their business model so there is that. ASR does seem to fill a valuable niche in that regard. People could save a lot of money if the numbers are not lying. The Fosi amps available on Amazon I mentioned above are a very good example of that in my experience.

Would love to see what @soundfield has to say about that last post. Wow is all I can say. Forget making love to a sine wave, you guys need to box it out in the ring. Though I think it's safe to say AJ would handily win. 

I don't get this exclusionary mentality. It does seem to introduce bias to say a speaker measures this way and therefore can proceed with a listening test. in my opinion Amir, shouldn't you do the measurements, not look at the results, do a blind listening test against some other speaker and then determine the conclusion based on that? Seeing the speaker, looking at the results all introduces your thoughts which are clearly heavily weighted towards science good / feeling bad.

When I hear what is pleasing to me, I could not care less about your “measurements” or your elitist, self indulgent, and frankly insulting  “ difficult to do it (hear things) properly” bs.

Your kind of hearing test is easy.  The kind that generates reliable data about the sound can be difficult at times.  Other times though, it is trivial to do.  But folks don't want to be bothered to know the reality of what they hear.  They prefer to stay in the illusion. I get it.  It is the Matrix movie all over again.

@nevada_matt of course everyone is entitled to like what they like based on personal preferences. Personal preferences are useful things for others to consider but facts and personal preferences are two different things. It’s the facts that help people decide what to buy because each has their own different personal preferences. It’s all good.

@nevada_matt   +1000

Amir keeps on posting that graph on trained vs. untrained listeners. What is a trained listener...someone who has passed the Harmon test, and who now believes he/she can tell what a musical sound sounds like, better than the ’unwashed’ masses. WOW!! The temerity of this guy is something to behold! One of the reasons that I really could not stand dealing with his ilk on the forum that he started...WBF. Another complete joke.

“Problem with using the ear in evaluating things is that it can be difficult to do it properly.”

Who cares.  

When I hear what is pleasing to me, I could not care less about your “measurements” or your elitist, self indulgent, and frankly insulting  “ difficult to do it (hear things) properly” bs.

Fact is the term audiophile has gotten a very bad rap over the years. The story is always how audiophiles seem to draw conclusions that can’t be substantiated by the data. I prefer the term hifi enthusiast. It’s the enthusiasm that yields the results in many cases. They synthesize truths from all the information available, not just numbers. The truths may relate to good sound which is subjective or good measured sound which is objective and Amir’s forte. Or both. No reason to just limit one’s information to numbers, though discounting valid numbers totally is probably not very constructive.

Different strokes.  More than one way to skin the cat?  Did I miss any appropriate cliches?

I trust subjective reviews if many unbiased reviewers draw similar conclusions. Then I like some  metrics to see if those correlate to what the people say they are hearing. When the stars all align anything is possible.

I hate to throw the B word around but could reviewers and retailers be….gasp….biased? This is surely not possible with Amir though, right? The M word does talk though. That’s always a safe bet.

More salt please ….

Hey wow!  Amir got a chart for everything!  They are all totally unbiased I’m sure. 😉