Did Amir Change Your Mind About Anything?

The fact that my posts were clumsy stylistically and too long is not the crux of the matter at all in this debate...

@mahgister calling everyone idiots isn’t helping get people to listen to your repeated long winded exclamations. You aren’t listening to why people are tuning you out.

First i respect you and never call you a name because you are RATIONAL... This must be clear..I called idiots the one who ask me to shut and go... You are not one...Then putting in my mouth the false fact that i called everyone idiots is a claim i dont like... You can apologize...

Second i answered your last post because you say that you can RATIONNALLY argue SUCCESSFULLY agaisnt Amir position..And put him in a corner where he will only be able to babble only ad hominem attacks with no more a rational argument .. I did it...

Third i ask you on what basis you arguments will be better than mine ?

Now you say :

I already explained with my donut analogy. You can look at and test food for composition all you want but taste will always be subjective. And tasting food is the whole reason it’s made. We don’t make donuts to watch them and study them.

Then basically your ANALOGY is only that an analogy... It is USELESS to argue against Amir with ONLY this analogy...

In my too long posts, i used10 articles and i appeal to the logical epistemological FACT that no MEASUREMENTS tools can be read in acoustic OUT OF A CONTEXT : a hearing theory...

i put Amir in a corner because save by ad hominem attack against Van Maanen, and childish simplification of the result of Oppenheim and Magnasco experiment and without adressing their CONCLUSION and the MEANING of this experiment in the context of hearing theory , he could not logically sustain the idea that his measurements can PREDICT qualitative perceptions from the human hearing as described in the ecological hearing theory which anyway encompass the Fourier hearing theory and correct it...

And you think that my long posts explaining this complex subject with Amir and criticizing Amir is useless and your Analogy is enough to put him in a corner ?😊

Thanks for not asking me to shut up and go cas the idiots who ask for it ... Your analogy is not an argument and Amir will live well with it... But he cannot OPPOSE any argument against ecological hearing theory and he cannot oppose any argument to Magnasco and Oppenhein analysis of human hyperacuity and his meanings for understanding the power and limits of linear Fourier measures set in psycho-acoustic...

Why do you think my posts were long ?  No one can resume a complex matter and arguments in few words and analogy... I dont harass people... I think... Some others harass people here and they ORDER  me to go...

If you think anyone can repeat shortly a one line analogy and win a debate ...You are naive...

it is not AN ARGUMENT...It is a only  that an  analogy Amir will smile at, he will not babble without words save ad hominem arguments with a mere analogy ...

By the way my style can appear rude sometimes by me i APOLOGIZE when i am wrong... i Stay polite... But i dont accept to be bully by idiots.. You are not one for anybody who read my post correctly...

my very best and total respect to you...

@mapman No one is putting down his hard work. What isn’t okay to is to point the finger and say hey you’re wrong I’m right. He does it in a condescending, rude, and yes sometimes uninformed way. We’re all human here, I think. Amir cherry picks people to attack and remove from his website if they don’t agree or bow down to him. How is that objectivity in the name of science?!

Fortunately Amir doesn’t run this forum and can’t play the almighty. There is no way this discussion could take place on his ASR. Isn’t that interesting? I would’ve been banned already.

@amir_asr Well, measurements show why it is not perfect. For measurements to fail, would have been if it didn’t show that!

I was following a scope readout by a tube amp designer recently who was acknowledging a "non-perfect" sign wave existed in the last design iteration. The top left corner of the sign wave was lively, less than perfect in terms of uniformity, yet reportedly sounded really good, alive and well, when the amp circuit was left as-is. Letting it be or hammering it into submission was the next case study to tune and listen more. This is where things get to be a LOT more interesting to me.

This designer mentioned when taming those little sign wave spikes (aka flare), now making it a more uninformed and perfect sign wave, all of the sudden the amp sounded "dead", no longer alive or enjoyable any more, bleh. After several tests, the designer then made a conscious decision to let it be, since it sounded much better in its original untamed state after extensive listening tests. This is what many of us mean by "listen first and then measure". Putting more emphasis on listening and what sounds best as a means to an end, rather than making graph lines flat.

Some of the popular mid woofer speaker drivers I’ve used from Scanspeak are this way, measuring less than perfect, yet they are alive and musical as-is when left alone - "less tamed" if that’s a description that resonates with a few members here. With tests showing a bit of less-than-perfect jagged flare on the graphs in the upper midrange frequency range on the last drivers I used - most electrical engineers would beat it back into submission with an overly controlling crossover. Some look at this flare as noise, distortion, needing correction. That’s one point of view, not all.

Once again, in my own self made speakers later discovered leaving the drivers as it was designed resulted in a captivating and engaging sound - left in less than perfect form. Sometimes what is perfect to an electrical measurement engineer is not always perfect music to others ears. Most of the audio systems I enjoy listening to do not measure perfectly at all - fwiw. The absolute best measuring dac I’ve ever owned was one of the worst to listen to. Sounding "dead", or boring being a great description.

Unfortunately a debate that won’t be solved on this tread it seems.

@mahgister your points are valid to state. I’m not as savvy on audio science. I admit that. I also admit that science is really important with audio gear. Just as it is with medicine and improving peoples vision for example. 

My analogy isn’t scientific but is based in fact. You cannot strip out the subjectivity of audio. Just like you can’t do it with food or anything to do with taste. You can’t measure taste. You can’t quantify it but it is there. And in some cases it doesn’t translate from culture to culture. One dish might be revered in some culture and detested in another. The environment the experience and the way the food is prepared all matters. Same goes for audio. It doesn’t occur in a vacuum.  

@somethingsomethingaudio no doubt style does matter when dealing with others. A little humbleness can go a long way. Same for having a sense of humor.

I am a senior level engineer myself and work with obsessed technical people like Amir all the time. Everyone is different though. Respect for others is a must in the corporate world because it’s typically a team effort that results in success. But the really good technical people often develop oversized egos to go along with it that can be a hindrance. But the smart ones learn over time and get it. In the end it’s the results that matter most. If one works for oneself it’s less of an issue as long as the results are there. You can do as you please as long as the results are there.

Here you use against me an argument that miss the point i made in my posts and reveal that you did not have understood them..

The point i made with the ecological theory of hearing, which is a real theory of hearing, not something i invented for this debate, the point this theory make is precisely what you just said and this theory is based on what you just said without explaing it in the precise hearing/measures scientific context ... But you dont explain why your point is right,, the ecological hearing theory, begiinning with Magnasco and Oppenheim experiment precisely do it, and i explain why this is so here in my long posts..

Then i NEVER oppose to your Analogy, an anology is not an argument... All my posts if you had read them EXPLAIN why your analogy is CORRECT... Then why not reading my posts ?

Yes they are too long, but these posts were not HERE for all to read, i WAS DISCUSSING AND CORRECTING AMIR faulty theory about his measures and the relation with hearing theory...I discussed with Amir disagreeing with him... Nobody here is in the obligation to read my posts TO AMIR... And no idiot can order me to stop and go...

Those who did not understand the discussion goal ask me to stop and go ...

@mahgister your points are valid to state. I’m not as savvy on audio science. I admit that. I also admit that science is really important with audio gear. Just as it is with medicine and improving peoples vision for example.

My analogy isn’t scientific but is based in fact. You cannot strip out the subjectivity of audio. Just like you can’t do it with food or anything to do with taste. You can’t measure taste. You can’t quantify it but it is there. And in some cases it doesn’t translate from culture to culture. One dish might be revered in some culture and detested in another. The environment the experience and the way the food is prepared all matters. Same goes for audio. It doesn’t occur in a vacuum.

Also I gotta admit that as a technical person myself nonsensical or merely extravagant claims with nothing but bravado and marketing hype bug the heck out of me. Happens here all the time. As long as people are civil I accept it as their right and take it for what it’s worth. But it does bug the heck out of me because I do care about the technical details. Tolerance is a good thing. Those with total confidence in their convictions won’t fear the opinions of others. I do get that! But hey again nobody is perfect and I tend to give the benefit of the doubt. FBOFW.

It’s always a good idea to have unbiased sources confirm scientific or technical findings. Data presented by just one guy may not be accurate for many reasons. So take it with a grain of salt FWIW.

As a human being i appreciate politeness...

Even in a rude discussion...

I appreciate everyone especially those with who i disagree if they are respectufull...Because i am able to learn from them...

The irony is i disagree with Amir And i agree with some point that some idiot make but are not able to articulate...This idiot ask me to shut up and go, unable to realize that i am on  the same side as him : listening cannot EXACTLY correspond with measures..

If it was the case it will be a solution for the central problem in psycho-acoustic..

It is not the case now in this science .. Amir dont know it...He pretend he know it...

Good day to all...

I have a little Fosi integrated Amp in one of my setups that I have posted about here in that it cost a pittance and turned out to be a huge overperformer driving my older kef ls50s very well which is not a trivial task. I have had some highly touted much costlier amps fail miserably at that in the past. I saw a review of a Fosi amp on asr site. Amir measured it and gave it a thumbs up. So we both agreed at least about Fosi amps in general. No minds changed

Your point is good...

I never contested the usefulness of measures or of others opinions with or without measures...

Measures set are useful information and we all welcome them ( if we have a brain able to read them for what they are) ...

The point on which i disgree with Amir is not his measures set usefulness,  is exclusively  about extending a set of measures as synonymous with sound perceived qualities because this set of measures is ANYWAY limited and based on an uncomplete hearing theory : the Fourier frequencies based theory... ...

This time i go by myself...

My best to you mapman

I have a little Fosi integrated Amp in one of my setups that I have posted about here in that it cost a pittance and turned out to be a huge overperformer driving my older kef ls50s very well which is not a trivial task. I have had some highly touted much costlier amps fail miserably at that in the past. I saw a review of a Fosi amp on asr site. Amir measured it and gave it a thumbs up. So we both agreed at least about Fosi amps in general. No minds changed

@mahgister I get it.  It's OK to disagree.  Peace!

BTW I read the posts on asr forum regarding Ohm Walsh speakers.  Interesting comments from users there but frankly one will learn a lot more about those RIGHT HERE than there.  At least so far.  Maybe Amir will put those to the test someday. Not that it matters.   Many Ohm users out there from over many years that are happy and they know it.   Not sure what else they need to know really. 

Petty BS, JA makes clear its a nearfield response and that's exactly what is shown. Your measurements show the anechoic response with baffle diffraction loss aka step. BOTH methods show only approximate output depth extension, NEITHER can predict the actual in room LF response, which will dominate.

Sorry, no.  JA's measurements assume you flush mount the speaker in an infinite wall.  No stand alone speaker is used that way. As such, his measurements overexaggerate the bass energy.  JA states the same: 

"The usual excess of upper-bass energy due to the nearfield measurement technique, which assumes that the radiators are mounted on a true infinite baffle, ie, one that extends indefinitely in both horizontal and vertical planes, is absent."

There is no way for you to predict where a speaker is located in a room as to provide any diffraction loss compensation.  This is why CEA/CTA-2034 standard calls for full anechoic response of bass, not a near field one with above stipulation.  And that is what I, Genelec, Neumann, PSB, Revel, etc. all do.

Once you put a speaker in a room, the response will radically change in bass.  For that reason, the job is not done when you get a well measuring speaker.  You need to measure and correct for response errors.  But you don't want to start with faulty measurements thinking a speaker designer didn't know how to design flat response and put that hump in there as seen in Stereophile measurements.

I hear you wanting the crude near-field measurement to be right as to then enable you to post them and say, "see, I have them."  But you don't since your speakers are not flush mounted on infinite walls.

BTW, Klippel NFS has capability to measure in-wall speakers with that assumption.  It will get rid of baffle diffraction and back wall reflections.  Here is an example with the speaker mounted in small baffle:

And here are the computational analysis of error components:

You can see how Klippel NFS I use has properly computed the radiation from back of the speaker ("acoustic shortcut") and subtracted it out because in real use you would not hear it.  Diffraction losses from the edges of my baffle are also found and subtracted.  The system is also self-checking allowing you observe its accuracy.

Bottom line, Klippel NFS is a $100,000 system designed to solve these problems and give you a true picture of the radiation pattern of a speaker independent of where or how it is measured.  

@mahgister 

The point on which i disgree with Amir is not his measures set usefulness,  is exclusively  about extending a set of measures as synonymous with sound perceived qualities because...

And you don't care, no matter how many times I have stated it, that the above is NOT my position.  :(

Measurements tell you if a system is deviating from perfection in the form of noise and distortion and neutral tonality.  This, we want to know because they are opposite of what high fidelity is about.  We want transparency to what is delivered on the recording.

When measurements show excess noise and distortion, that is that.  The system has those things and if they rise to point of audibility, you hear them.  Best to get a system that minimizes that so you don't have to become an expert in psychoacoustics to predict audibility.

Your argument needs to be that given two perfectly measuring system, one will sound better the other.  To which I say fine, show it in an ears only, controlled listening test.  Don't tell me what a designer thinks will happen.  Just show it with a listening test. 

You say the ears are the only thing that can judge musicality but when I ask you for such testing, you don't have one and instead you quote words for me or what is wrong with measurement.  We want evidence of the hypothesis you have.  Not repeated statement of the hypothesis.

BTW, if such a controlled test did materialize, it would be trivial to create a measurement to show the difference.  We will then know what it is that is observed.  When you don't have anything to show from what was tested, what music was used, what listeners observed reliably, etc. there is nothing there to analyze.

@mahgister your points are valid to state. I’m not as savvy on audio science. I admit that. I also admit that science is really important with audio gear. Just as it is with medicine and improving peoples vision for example. 

My analogy isn’t scientific but is based in fact. You cannot strip out the subjectivity of audio.

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.  We research and find out what measurements correlate with listening results.  Once there we use the measurements because they are reliable, repeatable and not subject to bias.

If there is doubt about measurements, we always welcome listening tests.  We only ask that they be proper: levels matched and ears be the only senses uses.

Just like you can’t do it with food or anything to do with taste. You can’t measure taste. You can’t quantify it but it is there. 

Per above, many times we can quantify it.  The entire field of psychoacoustics is about that: *measuring* human hearing perception.  You just need to do properly as I keep saying it.  Food research is done that way with blind tests.  There are no controversies there.  But somehow audio is special.

Audiophiles hugely underestimate the impact of confounding elements in audio evaluation. Reminds of some research that was done in Wine tasting.  Tasters were given two identical wines but told one cost $10 and another $90.  Here is the outcome:

"For example, wine 2 was presented as the $90 wine (its actual retail price) and also as the $10 wine. When the subjects were told the wine cost $90 a bottle, they loved it; at $10 a bottle, not so much. In a follow-up experiment, the subjects again tasted all five wine samples, but without any price information; this time, they rated the cheapest wine as their most preferred."

See how strongly price comes into the equation here and how removing that aspect in a controlled test was the key to arriving at the truth of what tasted better?

They go on to say:

"Previous marketing studies have shown that it is possible to change people's reports of how good an experience is by changing their beliefs about the experience. For example, says Rangel, moviegoers will report liking a movie more when they hear beforehand how good it is. "Our study goes beyond that to show that the neural encoding of the quality of an experience is actually modulated by a variable such as price, which most people believe is correlated with experienced pleasantness," he says."

As you see, we are wired this way to pollute our observation with what we think in advance of such tests.  It reasons then that if we want to know the truth about audio performance, that all these other factors are eliminated.  Otherwise we would be judging the price, etc. and not the sound.

Of course without going to school for a day, marketing and engineers alike in audio have learned the above.  They know that all they have to do is have a good story and high price and sale is made.  No need for any stinking controlled test proving anything.  Just say it, folks get preconditioned, and you are done.

@amir_asr Then what do you say to @soundfield who pointed out your old post where you did not level match?

Sorry, no.  JA's measurements assume you flush mount the speaker in an infinite wall.  No stand alone speaker is used that way. As such, his measurements overexaggerate the bass energy.  JA states the same: "The usual excess of upper-bass energy due to the nearfield measurement technique, which assumes that the radiators are mounted on a true infinite baffle, ie, one that extends indefinitely in both horizontal and vertical planes, is absent."

Once again, JA makes it clear its a nearfield measurement without correction, it's up to the viewer to read his speaker measurements section. And you to read your own website where long time speaker designers explain.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-make-quasi-anechoic-speaker-measurements-spinoramas-with-rew-and-vituixcad.21860/#post-726171

There is no way for you to predict where a speaker is located in a room as to provide any diffraction loss compensation. 

That's because you don't know what baffle diffraction loss is, it's based purely on the size/shape of the baffle, relative to wavelengths, not "location in room".

And again, ultimately, correction/EQ  below transition must be made based IN ROOM, not anechoic. The nearfield and/or anechoic is of limited use other than to compare speaker vs speaker in terms of extension. EQ will be needed regardless of how measurement is presented.

JA's measurements are fine and often done in situ, unlike yours, Genelec, Neumann, PSB, Revel, etc.

He's not bringing an NFS to his reviewers home. His quasi-anechoic on/off axis >300hz or so and nearfield below, along with in room (mostly) are suffice. Claiming that he needs an NFS is petty. Voecks also did just fine for your Salon 2s without.

NFS is a great tool, but certainly not mandatory for knowledgeable designers.

After several tests, the designer then made a conscious decision to let it be, since it sounded much better in its original untamed state after extensive listening tests. This is what many of us mean by "listen first and then measure". Putting more emphasis on listening and what sounds best as a means to an end, rather than making graph lines flat.

Oh I perfectly know what you mean. Before starting Audio Science Review, I co-founded a forum specifically focused on high-end audio.  Folks there spend more on audio tweaks than most of you spend on your entire system there!  That is where @daveyf and I met.  So there is nothing you need to tell me about audiophile behaviors this way.  I know it.

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.

BTW, the worse person you want to trust in these things is the person with a vested interest.  I don't mean this in a derogatory way.  Designer just want to defend their designs and be right.  So we best not put our eggs in that basket and ask for proof.

I post this story from Dr. Sean Olive before but seems I have to repeat it. When he arrived from National Research Council to Harman (Revel, JBL, etc.), he was surprised at the strong resistance of both engineering and marketing people at the company:

To my surprise, this mandate met rather strong opposition from some of the more entrenched marketing, sales and engineering staff who felt that, as trained audio professionals, they were immune from the influence of sighted biases.

[...]

The mean loudspeaker ratings and 95% confidence intervals are plotted in Figure 1 for both sighted and blind tests. The sighted tests produced a significant increase in preference ratings for the larger, more expensive loudspeakers G and D. (note: G and D were identical loudspeakers except with different cross-overs, voiced ostensibly for differences in German and Northern European tastes, respectively. The negligible perceptual differences between loudspeakers G and D found in this test resulted in the creation of a single loudspeaker SKU for all of Europe, and the demise of an engineer who specialized in the lost art of German speaker voicing).

You see the problem with improper listening tests and engineer opinions of such products?  

These people shun science so much that they never test their hypothesis of what sounds good.  Not once they put themselves in a proper listening test.  Because if they did, they would sober up and quick!  Such was the case with me...

When I was at the height of my listening acuity at Microsoft and could tell that you flushed your toilet two states away :), my signal processing manager asked me if I would evaluate their latest encoder with their latest tuning.  I told him it would be faster if he gave me those tuning parameters and I would optimize them with listening and give him the numbers.

I did that after a couple of weeks of testing.  The numbers were floating point (had fractions) and I found it necessary to go way deep, optimizing them to half a dozen decimal places.  I gave him the numbers and he expressed surprise telling me they don't use the fractions in the algorithm!  That made me angry as I could hear the difference even when changing 0.001.  I told him the difference was quite audible and I could not believe he couldn't hear them.

This was all in email and next thing I know he sent me a link to two sets of encoded music files and asked me which sounded better.  I quickly detected one was clearly better and matched my observations above. I told him in no uncertain terms that one set was better.  Here is the problem: he told me the files were identical!  

I could not believe it.  So I listened again and the audible difference was there clear as a day.  So I perform a binary test only to find that the files were identical. Sigh.  I resigned my unofficial position as the encoder tuner.  :)

This is why I plead with you all to test your listening experiences in proper test.  Your designer could have easily done that.  He could have built two versions of that amp, matched their levels and performed AB tests on a number of audiophiles blind.  Then, if the outcome was that the less well measuring amp was superior, I would join him to defend it! 

@amir_asr   You have said that you have been insulted here by myself and others, yet you have the temerity to post what you just did about the experience level of all audiophiles. You put all of the group into one basket, that of being clumsy and ignorant consumers..and therefore easy marks. Not ok in my books.

Believe or not, there are folk here who have extensive experience and are not just shopping with their eyes and attracted to the highest price anything.

Once again, JA makes it clear its a nearfield measurement without correction, it's up to the viewer to read his speaker measurements section.

He doesn't make it clear.  Most people will have no idea what I quoted means.  They see a graph and run home thinking the designer screwed up.

NFS is a great tool, but certainly not mandatory for knowledgeable designers.

Go and ask Ascend.  Since purchasing NFS, post my measurements of their speaker with the same showing serious issues, their design has been hugely transformed.  They can get full 3-D radiation of a speaker in 3 hours and iterate on the design on daily basis.  In contrast, garage show operations like yours will make a crude gated measurement or two and call it the day.  

Yes, if you spend the time and energy as you linked to in ASR link, you can get proper measurements.  But that is not what JA is doing.  And certainly not what you are doing on daily basis.

So yes, what else is new.  Garage shop operation sells speakers for $15,000 but works hard to say a) you don't need to see any measurements of said speakers and b) incorrect measurements claimed to be correct. 

@amir_asr   You have said that you have been insulted here by myself and others, yet you have the temerity to post what you just did about the experience level of all audiophiles. You put all of the group into one basket, that of being clumsy and ignorant consumers..and therefore easy marks. Not ok in my books.

What did you get insulted by and who says "ALL" audiophiles are alike?  Countless audiophiles are on ASR following and believing in audio science and engineering.

I am talking about people we both know that change a screw in an AC outlet and say another veil was lifted from the sound.  Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't.  We would only know if he did a simple blind test of that.  He didn't and observing that doesn't make what I said an insult.

Believe or not, there are folk here who have extensive experience and are not just shopping with their eyes and attracted to the highest price anything.

Ah the self-serving "experience" bit.  That much abused word.  This is how such experienced listeners as audio reviewers did in test speakers;

You want to explain to me why Audio Reviewers were producing such unreliable listening test results when evaluating speakers in a blind test?  That they could not repeat their own outcome when comparing speakers?  Experience didn't help them.  Nor did it help audio retailers and marketing/sales.

Proper "experience" was in the form of trained listeners.  They followed the proper path to get trained and their skill was proven in such tests. 

So please, don't use these cliches with me.  The whole purpose of my post was that I know what you speak of.  Experience....

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".

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

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 ….

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.

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?

“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.

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.

@nevada_matt   +1000

@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.

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.

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.

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.

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

what is “my kind”?

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.

@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.

Passing tests?    That sounds hard….

@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

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.

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?

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?

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.

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.

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 ;-)

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.

@soundfield why won’t you show your measurements?

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.

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?