I'm sorry to hear of the circumstances that led to the change in your system!
I'm glad you can still enjoy audio.
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.
1,423 responses
@amir_asr You continue to ignore my questions surrounding why Erin’s video thread was closed and locked? Please don’t reply with you didn’t take down the video. I never insinuated that. I want to know why you closed a thread you detailed yourself. If you don’t care about money which I again don’t believe or one millisecond, and it’s not a motivator then why do you care if a video from YouTube is on your website. It only gives you more users and traffic. Puzzling.
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They were no mere "tweaks" as you sarcastically claim.. They were mostly a balance between absorbtion/reflection/and diffusion materials for my room.. I used a grid of Helmholtz resonators of my own making and my own method to increase and inmprove my speakers soundfield performance ... It was not perfect but there was no comparison between before and after... Then instead of mocking my experiments successful for me in acoustic at no costs, why not answering me about the Magnasco and Oppenheim experiments about hearing and the uncertainty limit and his implication for audio improvement... Why not answering the articles and video of Dr, Hans Van Maanen? You resort to ad hominem mocking me as arguments ? Do you think when i post these photos that i was afraid of idiots mocking me on apperance ? 😊 my room was unesthetical but very revelatory about the power of acoustic treatment and control... other interesting post of you ? Loosing my house and room, i was sad but i modified akg K340 headphone and i am very happy listening music again thanks to Dr.Gorike for this amazin successful hybrid headphone..
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Distortion level detection is not what the human ears do well ...We do not perceive distortion in itself we perceive natural and musical sounds WE RECOGNiZE... This is precisely the problem... You use blind test to confirm your linear measuring tool and design in the symmetrical time domain... The problem is human hearing dont work in this way and in this time dimension, human hearing is non linear and time dependant , he is sensible to natural sounds, and music not to distorsion "per se" as an electrical measuring tool ...We dont listen sine wave function in real life... We dont speak the same language... The physicist Hans Van Maanen explain it completely i dont expect you will read it... You are on your technological blind crusade...
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And how do you know if some product falls in the "most" category or the other? By measuring!!! You don't just sniff the box, look at the price or reputation and decide that. You measure. Then you know. Of course you are just waiving your hand on that "most" bit. You have no background in psychoacousts, measurements or even electronic design. You have never participated in a single blind test presented to you. So what you are spitting out are just claims. Here is the good news though: superlative measured results cost next to nothing. So if you are purchasing something new, there is no reason to settle for "just enough fidelity." You can get to what I call provably transparent. There, we compare the measurements to threshold of hearing (which is determined by listening tests). If the equipment has less noise and distortion than this, then those factors are simply not in play and we can prove it! The moment you go above that level, then it becomes shades of gray which requires interpretation. A skill that our soundfield friend does not remotely have.
I have post numerous blind tests that I have passed. We ask people to run blind, level matched tests. And when they do, backed by training and skill they have, across countless such challenges, you jump up and down claiming they must have cheated. Well, you are dead wrong and have no proof of it. In the video I post on listener training, I actually explained how I passed Archimago high res challenge. Ah, you don't like the fact that I knew what impairment to look for. Well, that is how a proper listening test is done. We want listeners to know what to listen for. We don't want to stick our head in the sand by removing that skill and hoping to get negative outcome, the reality be damned. Yes, it is inconvenient for likes of you to see someone like me disprove your ideas of inaudibility. Tough. Next time learn the topic itself and not just repeat talking points that nothing can sound better than something else. Finally, I looked at your website. There is no measurements of any speakers except for one random one with no documentation. Surely you don't claim that speaker measurements are of no use, are you? You are not that deep into subjectivity, are you? Then I saw this bit of absurdity on your home page: "Our products reflect the philosophy that loudspeakers should strive to sound like the real thing. "Hi Fidelity" once meant exactly that. If you know what live acoustic music sounds like, you will appreciate our products." Oh really? How does a speaker convert a microphone recorded content into the sound of the real thing? Magic? You have some scientific research to link to that states anything remotely like this? Or is it that when it comes to selling speakers, you are just as bad as the next guy in ignoring audio science and engineering? |
speaking of which, @prof, I was curious about your system… |
I do zero promotion of Revel speakers. Every year, a handful of people reach out to me asking if we can sell them Revel speakers. I quote them a price. Half the time they get it from us, half the time they go and buy it elsewhere. My company's business is NOT retail audio. We make our living designing million dollar whole house (or commercial building) lighting, security, shades, etc. Our clients are not audiophiles and the most they want is a whole house sound with invisible or nearly so speakers throughout their house/estate. I run AudioScienceReview.com as a separate venture that has nothing to do with Madrona. Every review of a product that may bring even appearance of conflict of interest comes with a clearly note: Note: our company, Madrona Digital, is a dealer for Revel speakers. So feel free to read any level of bias in subjective comments from me. And this was my conclusion: "Many are thinking about using these speakers for Atmos height speakers. I don't see them being optimal in this configuration given the narrow usable angle." You think that is going to result in more sales? I don't think so Yon keep throwing these innuendos all you want. At the end of the day, I conduct myself with highest level of ethical conduct I know how. That you think money speaks more than anything else should be reason to avoid the work of many others who chase the same. It is not a motivator for me as I have repeatedly explained. |
That is a myth and insult to many audiophiles who don't consider themselves any of those. Nothing about a controlled test says you have to do short term testing. You think a cable sounds different? Spend a month listening to it and another month listening to another. As long as you don't know which cable is which when listening, and repeat the test enough to know you are not guessing, you are performing a valid test. Now, we encourage you to not rely on long term memory as it is an extremely lossy system and sharply reduces your acuity when it comes to hearing small impairments/differences. This is backed by medical science (look up echoic memory), and controlled listening tests. Please see this summary of an AES paper on this topic: AES Paper Digest: Sensitivity and Reliability of ABX Blind TestingThe results were that the Long Island group [Audiophile/Take Home Group] was unable to identify the distortion in either of their tests. SMWTMS's listeners also failed the "take home" test scoring 11 correct out of 18 which fails to be significant at the 5% confidence level. However, using the A/B/X test, the SMWTMS not only proved audibility of the distortion within 45 minutes, but they went on to correctly identify a lower amount. The A/B/X test was proven to be more sensitive than long-term listening for this task. I have done a ton of such tests. The longer the switching time, the more sensitivity I lose. Again, this is due to our short term memory being almost lossless compared to the highly lossy long term listening. Once more though, you are welcome to take as long as you want in comparing products blind. As to you putting your fait in certain group of people, that again is false. I showed example of how audio reviewers did so poorly in blind tests of speakers. As to Musicians, while they hearing does get trained in certain areas (e.g. detection of reflections in a room), they do no better than general public when it comes to matters related to audio fidelity. If they did better, then they would mostly be audiophiles which they decidedly are not. My piano teacher for example just gives me blank looks when I talk about anything related to audio fidelity! Musicians listen to music from a spot in the performance venue that is different than us as listeners anyway. As to those "trained music lovers," when tested in any kind of blind test, they do very poorly. Most would not dare taking the same tests that I have taken and passed. It is entirely too convenient to declare yourself as trained with no proof point whatsover. |
You play with words here.. Proper listening tests are LONG TERM MEMORY TESTS using musicians, acoustician or trained music lovers...( not sellers and reviewers as you say) Short term memory test are good for SUPERFICIAL debunking ...The basic of psycho-acoustic is not founded on blind test , they are SECONDARY tool...
Why long term memory for test ? Because hearing is better in long term memory span than seeing, it is the opposite for seeing which is better in the short memory window... And BECAUSE Human hearing IS based on time dependant evaluation and non linear means , time independant measuring linear tools as fourier tools cannot capture his tracking and resolution power adequately... It is the reason why the main tool of acoustician cannot be blind test and it is the reason why Fourier modelling does not describe human hearings.. ...As Oppenheim and Magnasco demonstrated in their experiment where human hearings beat uncertainty of Fourier method and the Gabor limit... You use blind test to confirm your biases about your own limited set of measures linear and time independant one...ThaTS ALL... This physicist here contradict most of your claims in these videos: And he designed his OWN components speakers and amplifiers.. Will you claim he is incompetent ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW74J7CxqDo
Instead of answering my points about the importance of this discoveries by Oppenhein and Magnasco about the non linear and dependant time ears/brain working and his relation to our perception of audio qualities and the way the perceptive abilities of humans beat the Fourier barrier uncertainty you said that my physicists were phony... In the same way you attacked AD HOMINEM 2 of these physicists and now you attacked me for being "verbose" as your LAST argument... Listen this one demolishing your approach in twenty minutes.. Debunk him... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW74J7CxqDo
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Amir, can you share what constitutes a "properly run listening test" from your perspective? What characteristics are you listening for, specifically?
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Nothing remotely like this was stated. I have said the opposite and will say it again: properly run listening test is superior to measurements. And no, what I say is not my views. It is the consensus view of audio science. That a listening test must be controlled to have value. Otherwise it is just noise. BTW, you don’t get to self-claim to be trained. As I showed earlier, audio reviewers who I am sure you would claim to be trained, can’t tell the performance of a speaker reliability in blind tests! Watch this video I did on what a proper training means: The rest of your posts I am afraid are too verbose for me to read and respond do. So please don’t take lack of response as agreement with anything you are posting. or refusing to answer. I just can’t keep up with you. :) |
It is option 3: you have forgotten what you claimed and what I objected to. Here it is again
Nothing you quoted says those DACs measure the same. Indeed no two audio products measure the same! There are always differences. The question then becomes matter of audibility. On ASR people have varying views on that point. Most vocal members believe after certain level of performance, transparency is achieved so better measurements while nice and welcome, won't improve the sound of the audio product. This is the third time I have corrected some factual statement you made that was completely wrong. Please don't keep making stuff like this. You are doing disservice to your fellow audiophiles who subscribe to audio science/engineering. |
When Amir proposes his set of measures, basic linear and time independant measures, as falsification of marketer specs design, then i had no problem... When he disparaged any trained listeners to be meaningless in favor of his set of measures only to be confirm by his own listenings and listenings protocols putting all experienced listeners in the trashbin, proposing short term blind test instead of long term listening test, but more than that ignoring psycho-acoustic basic science about non linear and time dependant Ears/brain decoding and pushing his simplistic electrical sets of measures over the head of anyone, this is not even technology over science it is worst, it is ideologically motivated stances...I will not speculate about his motives i dont like ad hominem attacks...
The 4 physicist i summoned he disparaged two BEFORE reading them as ignorant...Two of them are author of the papers about hearing beating the Fourier uncertainty, he never adressed these two experiments...And the last one Hans Van Maanen, he disparaged him on the spot, but not only is a working physicist but he design amplifiers and speaker which are based on his studies of the non linear working in the time dependant dimension of the hears/brain... This dude is not phony, it is simple to read his papers...He know much more about audio than Amir who play with technological and computer tools but did not created his own components design as Van Maanen around psycho-acoustic fundamental facts in hearing theory... By the way Van Maanen asked and praised long term trained listeners to improve audio design, especially musicians, acoustician and trained music lovers ... He did not favor blind test as a cure for all needs which are always anyway used for very limited and special utility in a narrow phase of the design window or for marketer fun and publicity ... An amplifier is not a drug , we dont test it the same way with blind guinea pigs with their short memory window...
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@jbhiller I agree with you. It occurred to me that the speaker that Amir used to listen to the little Luxman amp was entirely inappropriate as well. This reminds me of the poor review that Jason Victor Serinus wrote of the Jadis JA200mk2 amps for Stereophile, wherein he mismatched the amps with his virtually impossible to drive Wilson Alexia’s! Instead of blaming a mismatch of gear, which frankly was obvious to anyone with any experience in this hobby, he places blame on the amp/victim. Ever since this review, I read JVS’s reviews with a grain of salt and suspect he really is somewhat unqualified to be in his position. |
I'm willing to bet a dollar that John Atkinson didn't trash that Luxman tube amp because, like David Manley, he understands that such distortion levels (a) may not matter (audible or inaudible) to the human ear; and/or (b) may sound pleasing to the human ear. There's a big assumption in the ASR conclusion that the Lux is a bad amplifier--just as there's a big assumption in the ASR conclusions that some other amplifiers are deserved of a golfing pink panther. And as @mahgister as adroitly pointed out, is this science? The assumption calls into question the use of label "science review". Personally, I'd love to walk into a room with a pair of 100dB speakers and hear that little Lux churning out a half watt of sound! Mr. Atkinson's write-ups just sound more scientific and don't have schtick. I prefer them. Others may prefer ASR. It's free country. I just hope ASR helps people on their audiophile journey. It doesn't work for me though.
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Am i the only one to defend psycho-acoustic and trained listenings over linear and time-independant set of measures ? https://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=15002.
Subjective and Objective Evaluation of the Acoustic Vacuum-Tube Amplifiers The subjective and objective evaluation of five high-quality vacuum-tube audio power amplifiers is presented in the paper. As the reference, a professional transistor amplifier has been used. The subjective evaluation has been done by a team of judges, as well as using a computer-based psychoacoustic model in accordance with PAQM protocol. The amplifers’ sound quality assessed by the listeners is consistent with the one evaluated with the use of the psychoacoustic model. It was found that the best sound quality is obtained by vacuum-tube amplifiers, the worse – by the reference amplifier. The results of subjective evaluation are inconsistent with quality assessed by measurement of objective parameters: all amplifiers have comparable quality but transistor amplifier is the best one due to the lowest THD+N level. |
@soundfield I am seeing libel and slander thrown around all the time. Read up on some legal precedent. I am not in the living room of MKR and have no way of verifying your relationship with him. Not one thing I said on this thread is fact. They are my stated opinions and a lot of other people thought the search was bs on asr. This is a forum not a news corporation saying the voting machines were tampered with. It’s my feeling and suspicion. As I stated earlier no way I’d buy your speakers based on how you behave here and I’m not supporting Amir anymore. You both are what’s wrong with audio companies and dealers. The above is my opinion. @texbychoice not only that but Amir himself profits from it by constantly promoting revel products. How do I know this? Well I once early on before I knew better was interested in his company and thought maybe I’d grab a pair of revels from him. He does exactly what he forbids others from doing. Allegedly. |
Some of you ask why so much hostility toward Amir and ASR. Take the situation with Erin. Erin was kicked off of ASR because of violating a core principle of ASR prohibiting financial gain. In the justification Amir explained Erin had been warned multiple times, while at the same time allowed to remain for almost a year after the first warning. Such a nice guy was Amir to allow a core ASR principle to be violated for almost a year. Anybody else granted such generosity? Much more likely, Erin was seen as useful to ASR until he became viable competition. That type of self serving behavior contrasted with ASR routine claims of being an honest broker do not wash. Situational ethics on full display. |
In a word: human hearing is neither linear nor time-invariant... Measures based on Fourier linear and time invariant tools cannot be qualified as describing real human hearing impressions nor to predict them...( They are not even enough to capture all amplifiers design essential specs for the human hearings as described by Dr. Hans Van Maanen in an article on fourier conditions on his site ) Then Amir verifying gear specs of brand named and falsifying them "may be" useful, yes or pehaps... But his attacks on experimented trained listeners impressions as non valid goes too far... It is one thing to measure and another thing to claim that this set of linear and time invariant measures will predict audio qualitative impression... I summon 4 physicists to express that on different perspective... Papers are there to be read... No one can accuse me to insult him doing so... But i am able to read... And my conclusion is Amir goes to great lenght to disqualify any trained listeners because of his linear and time invariant set of measures which can in no way predict qualitative hearing impressions... Measures dont convey all there is to say about the qualitative perceptive impressions of an audio system in real acoustic conditions, especially linear and time invariant set of measures because human hearing power is non linear and time dependant... By the way disqualifying listeners with blind test protocols is preposterous, because the qualitative impressions must be verified by long term listening of trained listeners as musicians, acousticians or experiment audiophiles... Short term memory testing on subtle on selected acoustic factors are not enough at all... Blind tests is almost useless to test components because long term memory and long term listenings are necessary... I conclude that Amir use these blind test protocols to deconsider any serious listenings tests...Then only his set of linear and time dependant measures can be valid and any "subjective" expert listenings contradicting them is eliminated at the start... But Audio is not based on gear measures or gear impressions, it is based on psycho-acoustic real life long term memory trained listenings experiments and on a set of measures able to capture all aspects of the non linear and time dependant human hearings impressions.. ... As any acoustician knows already or any good amplifier designer ... By the way in audio as in philosophy, ad hominem attack disqualify anyone from the debate... Period...
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It seems measuring amplifiers in real dynamic musical input conditions is necessary:
Tone burst response of amplifiers to determine some properties of their
Author: Dr. Hans R.E. van Maanen (Temporal Coherence) The rest of the article is there : https://www.temporalcoherence.nl/cms/images/docs/DynamicResponseAmplifiers.pdf |
Take a look here and listen what this physicist had to say about high end design he created himself...Compare it to the simplistic case of Amir dogma about the measures he use and the idea of what is human hearing impact in audio...And why we must ALL OF US renounce to our hearing history and obey his simplistic protocol of measures as hearing truth... Measures dont convey all there is to say about an audio system in real acoustic conditions... There is plenty of articles and videos here...This guy, Dr. Hans R.E. van Maanen, is a real scientist not a cult leader deciding what people will hear and must hear in audio...
There is what he say in an interview about listening tests : «Many designers look at the figures, based on measurement signals. They do not
https://www.temporalcoherence.nl/cms/en/reviews Hans van Maanen design high end audio, amplifiers and speakers... Read his bio and decide if this scientist is an ignorant as Amir toss it away in no time... His bio resume : Dr. Hans R.E. van Maanen was born in Arnhem, Netherlands where he attended primary and high school. After finishing his high school education, he started working at the Shell laboratories in Amsterdam. As it was clear to him that he would need more education, he studied at the University of Amsterdam in the evening hours, from which he received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Physics with Mathematics, Information Science and Chemistry, both with honours. At the Shell laboratories, he worked on flow measurement techniques, fluid mechanics, chemical engineering and turbulence, resulting in several publications. Then he worked on the application of small computers in experiments and the related data-processing. He applied his experiences to the dataprocessing of Laser-Doppler Anemometry data, which he laid down in his Ph.D.-thesis for the Delft University of Technology. In 1997, he moved to the Shell laboratory in Rijswijk (Netherlands) and worked on multi-phase flow rate measurement in the upstream sector of the oil and gas industry. He was heavily involved in wet-gas measurement, for which he extended the work of Rick de Leeuw and others for horizontal Venturis. This resulted in a mathematical model for the multi-phase wet-gas flow in Venturis. After leaving Shell in 2010, he became an independent consultant for Hint Europe and in that position he extended his modelling to vertical upward Venturis. He presented his work on many different conferences and published numerous papers. His hobbies are listening to music (mostly classical), developing high-end audio systems and riding a motorcycle in a touristic way.
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Exactly! There was a perfect opportunity to clearly state that most of your measurements fall well below audibility thresholds AND, even if they are perceptible, there is no clear evidence one is preferred over another. You do ZERO valid listening tests. Yet you not only "Rank', but routinely "Not recommend" products based solely on measurements with zero listening test correlation. Of course your house of cards collapses if you preferred a "higher distortion" not recommended DAC over a top ranked SINAD champ one in an administered by someone else listening test. Or hear no difference at all. You are the exact opposite of someone like Toole. Amusing when folks even in this thread, say they only buy stuff based on your Pied Piper recommendations ;-). How about an Amir DAC blind test at PAF not run by Amir, with no view of real time analyzers? |
The first part is obvious, the latter is outright slander. I had no clue who MKR was until he contacted me after reading this https://www.soundstagehifi.com/index.php/opinion/1762-the-best-of-florida-international-audio-expo-2023 , like anyone reading the internet could. Which was well into his months long speakers search. Actually I was overwhelmed with interest after that article, which had zero to do with any thread on ASR. I'm a small manufacturer always at maximum capacity, I can't handle more orders or interest like the type from ASR. That's a complete BS insinuation you made, essentially calling MKR a shill. He's a real person, like Duke Lejeune, who has known MKR (his real initials) for decades. I don't advertise and don't need to use shills. Unlike many like yourself, I don't hide behind an online pseudonym. I use my real name/initials/company and exhibit publicly all the time. |
@amir_asr I always post as DaveyF and that is how I was known on ASR. Nonetheless, I think your forum is a nice outlet for your views, and while I may agree with some (most?), I also know that there are too many folk there who are unable to get around the idea that measurements should be secondary to what one's ears are telling them. Whether you believe this or not, i am not sure. Also, when I was on WBF, it became obvious ( albeit after you left) that there were a few 'guru's who wanted to use the forum as their personal soap box ( along with both of the owners) and that if anyone demurred, they were considered 'undesirable'! I did not leave after Myles came back; instead I was banned by one of the owners as he did not like my questioning of his favorite 'guru' and could not abide by the fact that someone might not like his 'sell to members' agenda! I understand that if one owns a forum, then one hopes that it will be a) potentially monetarily of value to the owner(s), b) a platform to get one's agenda and point of views across to a wider audience and c) attract like minded folk who will defend the owners value systems and beliefs. Unfortunately, I am not one to go along with these trends....;0)
BTW, I was not specifically calling you out as an amateur, as i think you do have the experience you post, I just suspect that you are more into the 'science' than the music. There is nothing wrong with this in my books, it is just not where I come from. Reminds me of the time I was talking to one of the best known audio designers who confessed to me that he hated music, could not understand it and never listened to it, BUT enjoyed the technical electronic side of making amps, DAC's etc., It was an interesting conversation for me.
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Earlier today Amir basically claimed I was lying because I said his members claimed that Dacs that measured the same sound the same. He said"No one has said this. You all keep making stuff up and then complain about it."
However, the vast majority of DACs will sound the same. Oh dear lord, DACs do not sound different. Please describe how you have tested these different sounding DACs. And please do not say I tested with my ears and I could hear the difference. That is I am sorry to say, just ridiculous and should never be typed on the Internet. Firstly most all better DACs sound the same and people use their imaginations too much and believe all sorts of stuff is happening so be careful with other peoples’ DAC sound quality opinions. If there is a difference in sound quality and imaging and we are using the same DAC ICs then the only thing remaining that could affect the sound quality is the balanced/single ended input circuitry or the audio out circuitry which is basically the reversal of the input circuitry. 1) there’s no reason to believe they’d sound different in theory I think you are in the wrong forum. All DACs sound the same unless they are doing something really wrong. Scientifically speaking DACs should sound the same. Talk is cheap. Show us a double blind result where you can reliably make the difference between 2 recent dacs. We never saw a successful one. People are not able to differentiate between good amps, so for DACs no way. The differences are order of magnitude lower than what the human ears can differentiate. If you want to believe, that’s fine but you may not be on the correct forum. Don’t beat yourself up over it. 99% of the people believe DACs all sound different because they heard it, read it in advertisements, watched/read reviews, were told by sellers or friends. A lot of ASR members belong to the small 1% of people that think/know otherwise. So what is it Amir? There are 2 possibilities
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You made a claim about what we say regarding measurements directly translating to better sound. I challenged you and this is all you have to say? That it must be true? No, it isn't. It seems every other day someone says the opposite. Here is a thread from this week: A SINAD of 80 or SINAD of 100 Can You Really Tell The Difference?First answer: "I very much doubt it. All the results I've seen indicate human ears are good for 70dB max, usually much less." You claim I jump in there telling people better measurements = better sound after others say so. You don't see me saying anything there. The only "crap" here then are empty accusations you can't back. |
I seemed to recall you left on your own on ASR. If you give me your alias there, i can look it up. But do remember that I invited you back to WBF when I was the admin there. You were reluctant to come back at first but I promised to take care of the issues you had as best as I could. You came back but then quit when Myles came back to the forum. With respect to ASR, most days I am engaged with people there who disagree with me. It is so routine that I sometimes wonder why I do this! Yet, almost all remain until they repeatedly get rude and obnoxious. |
I sure hope given the fact that you have known me for years, that you are talking about someone else than me. Here are my qualifications that are linked in my signature on every post on ASR Forum: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/a-bit-about-your-host.1906/ If you were talking about me, take a look above and tell me what in there tells you I am not qualified to do what I do. For now, until recently, my Audio Precision analyzer was newer than John's (I have an AP for 3 decades now!). My $100K klippel NFS speaker measurement system is hugely superior to JA's manual measurements. I recently bought a $22000 reactive load to better stress test amplifiers. All in all, I have probably $200,000 invested in measurement gear. Combine this with decades of experience with analog, digital electronic design combined with signal processing, psychoacoustics, networking, computer technology, etc. and I say I know a few things in this domain. :) |
JA's measurements are invaluable. But you have to *very* careful about his conclusions. In almost all cases, if the measurements dispute subjective results or company reputation, language is used to cover up all that is shown in the measurements. Here is an example: https://www.stereophile.com/content/luxman-sq-n150-integrated-amplifier-measurements Let's start with his conclusion: "As with other Luxman amplifiers I have looked at, the SQ-N150 is a tube design you don't have to make apologies for. It is well-engineered and offers excellent measured performance within its limited power envelope.—" Let's look at that measured performance:
This is atrocious performance. As soon as half a watt, distortion takes over from noise and rises massively as you go to higher power levels. Here is the frequency response:
High output impedance means highly variable response that will change with load. There is not a single measurement in there that remotely comes close to showing proper engineering. Now here is my assessment of the identical amplifier: Look at at the FFT on top right showing copious amount of noise and distortion. Combined, the SINAD lands at less than 50. Putting that in perspective you get this: It is the second worst amplifier I have ever measured! And I have measured over 200. Multitone shows huge amount of intermodulation distortion which is going to stomp on any low level detail in your music: None of that "grass" should be there. What is left above it is just 7 to 11 bits of distortion-free range!!! Here is my power vs distortion graph: Notice how I show you two reference graphs in dashed lines: one with horrible performance and one that is superb. You can instantly tell this amplifier in the former category. JA's measurements didn't show this, right? This is the my listening test results and conclusions: "Luxman SQ-N150 Listening Tests See the stark difference? You didn't get what you said from JA. He was highly diplomatic, hoping that few people would really understand his measurements to think otherwise. But if they were, they would know what the reality was. I can be direct and frank because a) I am not beholding to companies like this to send me product as owners already do and b) I am not able to hide what my much more clear graphs and measurements tell. Better yet, we have a number of highly skilled tube amplifier designers who commented in the review thread. They were surprised how poorly this amplifier is designed. Here is one of them: "The high second tells me that either the output stage is pretty unbalanced or the loading on the input 12AX7 is too low. Or both. The 10 dB difference between channels on 2nd suggests the former is a major factor. |
"Apparently you want to be biased before listening. I thought blind testing was scientific?" Did you not watch the video I post? It is entirely about this topic. So no, I want to be informed when I perform listening tests. People who are not informed and are not professionally trained, produce entirely unreliable results. Here are the professional reviewers did: http://seanolive.blogspot.com/2008/12/part-2-differences-in-performances-of.html
Look at the reliability of professional audio reviewers. They are even worse than audio sales people! Again, this research along with much more detail is covered in my video. I create those videos so I don't have to keep answering the same question over and over again: It is entirely wrong to assume that if you don't see measurements in sighted listening, you are generating more correct results. You are still completely biased due to using your eyes and prior history to judge audio products. And without the measurements to guide you, you are produce totally unreliable observations. Finally, the main reason for my listening tests of speakers and headphone is not just to give you an abstract impression of the product. The purpose is to look at impairments found in the measurements and verify their audibility. This cannot be done without seeing the measurements. I post an earlier example in how I used frequency response of products to a) correct them with eq and b) provide that correction for all to use (and to verify my compensation). Neither would be possible with simply listening. |
I think that measurements should be an important consideration, but in the right context. I am quite impressed by the measurements and explanations that JA gives to most of the Stereophile reviews. There have been some real eye openers in his measurement section that not only points to technical issues, but also, in some cases, to a general lack of quality in the piece under review. If one reads most of the reviews in that periodical, they are typically filled with hyperbole, and the reviewer hears nothing wrong at all. Yet, there have been several instances wherein JA has discovered problems that the potential consumer should be aware of. This is a valuable asset IMO. The problem I have with the 'less technically' able amateur who brings his measurements and concerns to the fore, either via his web portal or other means, is that these concerns have to be considered in regards to where they originated and the experience level ( along with the access to the appropriate testing equipment) that is evidenced. Most times the credentials really just are not there, but never questioned.. |
Message I saw scrawled on a Bathroom Wall: DON'T FEED THE "Electrical Engineer by degree and hobby" EGO by engaging in Back and Forth dialogue. This is because, for the most part, you cannot appeal to an "Electrical Engineer by degree and hobby" through empathy and humanity – the EEBDAH deliberately wants to subjugate and antagonize you because they derive validation and gradification from it. So the only way to deal with them is to ignore them completely. |
@daveyf Love it. Fight on |
I am probably banned from ASR, not sure, but I’m banned from so many of these sites, I have lost count, lol! I actually consider it a badge of honor, because like most folk, I don’t always agree with the forum admins, and as such they pull the ‘holier than thou’ card and censor/ban anyone who has differing opinions, or goes against their little TOS. I was recently banned from the SH forum, as a mod( over there they have the temerity to consider themselves as ‘gort’s’) didn’t like a logical question I asked about selling some gear on their site, and then tried to make me beg his forgiveness to remain on the site;pathetic on a number of levels. |
Amir said "People who claim they should listen first and measure second, just have it wrong. They will then be giving you a random subjective opinion"
Yeah that’s me, no I have it right. Apparently you want to be biased before listening. I thought blind testing was scientific? It is completely backwards to know the measurements beforehand. it basically insures being biased. Bizarre. Not very logical and makes me lose respect for your methods.
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@amir_asr You did not read anything I wrote and you didn’t answer 🤣. I asked why you closed the thread. Closing the thread is in essence censoring the video because you’re butt hurt at anyone posting his content to your website. That post will now sink to the bottom and not be seen. You just said if people are rude on ASR they are shown the door. Well you better show yourself the door. This was your comment on the top 5 discussion. “Hate clickbait titles like that. It seems every second there is another like that. This whole monetization business drives creators to make so many of these.” Hate is a strong word and it contributes nothing to the conversation about the speakers which was the topic, in a speaker subsection of your website. Your comment derailed the discussion and then you shut it down like people were acting out of line the responses defending him received way more likes than yours and you got into a huff. People were rude in the other thread about AJs speakers which I think you let go on because you don’t like Soundfield or AJ. You never shut it down until it was too late and everyone was hostile. For the record I don’t have a dog in this fight, as I think that speaker search was suspect and I have a feeling was AJ trying to post his product on your website by some other member. I see both sides of this and how people can take advantage of forums to self promote. Erin’s video was not that. Doug Demuros car videos are put up on Reddit all the time and not removed because it adds another perspective and gets people talking on Reddit. All you are doing is alienating fans of yours by how you behave here. I was a fan up until this point. I post on your website I won’t disclose my username because I don’t want retribution. To repeat you did not answer me. Not on that question and you didn’t answer me on how much money you personally make for your business promoting your own reviews of products you sell on your website and forum.
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Yes, in your blind rage you still can't say specifically what I am to blind test my speakers for/against, unlike your faked ABX test which were purportedly detection/difference tests for sampling/bits. Laughable that you post someone else's speaker preference tests, the kind you don't do! Which is exactly what I'm proposing for PAF 2024, you taking a blind test administered by someone else where you can't game/fake it. I'd be happy to do a test of my speakers vs your Revels. Don't be scared ;-) |
Amir claimed he is right about the relation of measurements and audio perceived qualities by dogma and inquisitorial blind test and banishment of any subjectivist... All the four physicists with their 4 articles are morons who know less in psycho-acoustic than him it seems ...Even the one designing high end audio systems and contradicting him... Human hearings trained abilities are worthless and only Amir measuring gear test say all there is to say about gear experience and even in psycho-acoustic... In the meantime not a word from him about the fact that human hearing beat the Fourier uncertainty barrier with his non linear methods in the time symmetry broken domain...What does it means that trained musician can extract information over this barrier up to 13 times in some case ? Nothing for Amir, gear measuring tools say all there is to say about dac, amplifiers and audio experience... As i said already, yes welcome to the measuring gear information and gear specs debunking, but suggesting that all subjective audiophile listenings is the same bullshit ready to be thrown in the same trash can because only measuring tools used by him is the ultimate truth this is going too far... Human hearings, especially trained one are more trusty than measuring tools in many cases... Because the gear response to measures cannot either be read as always a warrant for audio qualities... Anyway Amir do business not science...It is my opinion now... Measuring gear is informative thanks for that ... All the inference made about hearings deduced from that are ideology not science ... |
I answered you already. You claimed I censored Erin's video in that thread. I had not. The thread was open for a long time and people said what they wanted. You can still go and watch the video as many times as you like. Heck, post it here and see what people think of it. The man said what his top 5 speakers are. Go and post in his youtube comments what you think. You have no cause of action to demand that I open that thread on ASR. |
It is even more arrogant to think that because we don't know everything, we know nothing. Your doctor diagnoses what is wrong with you without knowing "all there is" about human body. Somehow for a hobby like this, you demand to know it all or else lets forget about it all.... |
No one has said this. You all keep making stuff up and then complain about it. Members frequently say the opposite. That superlative measurements of something doesn't mean it sounds better than something with lesser performance. "The fact is that there are some very rude people on ASR" What a tone deaf comment to make. In a thread with hostility shown from a dozen or more members toward me, your fellow audiophiles, audio science and engineer, you have the gall to talk about rudeness? We have very low tolerance for rudeness. I just commented above how we let AJ go because he was so obnoxious. It didn't matter that that he talked about objectivity. Yes, if you show up on ASR and make wild comments that you can't back, you will get strong pushback. Get rude and we will show you the door. |
"Amir, you kicked me off your "Audio Science" forum for being "too objective", because I insisted only valid listening tests mattered, not "SINAD" and "ETC" many of your cult worship. " As your language here quite demonstrates, we banned you from ASR due to being the most obnoxious person I know on these forums. Heaven knows how many people you have alienated from audio science with your hostile posting and attitude which conveying next to no knowledge. The above, and refusal to practice anything you preach to subjectivists was the reason we let you go. When I asked you for blind tests of your speakers, your tap dance would have earned you a seat at Julliard. Here is quick example: "
[AJ/Soundfiled:] For what conflicts with what objective evidence exactly Amir? What am I to blind test for specifically? Red Herrings? As if that were not enough, you have now turned into speaker salesman looking to protect your pocketbook by appease to this membership. In a thread where people are attacking audio science, blind testing, engineering, etc. you are not only completely silent, but rather have a fight with me. I say your transition to subjectivity is complete. Thank heavens as we don't remotely want someone this miserable in our camp. I once asked JJ (my chief audio architect and one of audio luminaries) about people like you. He made this wise statement: "an unreasonable advocate is worst of both worlds!" |
