Did Amir Change Your Mind About Anything?

Also just to add to my response

@amir-asr

…

 

Sadly for them and you, it didn’t result in better sound:

Nordost Tyr2 Cable Listening Tests
I fed the output of the Topping D70s into Topping A90 Discrete. The latter then drove my Dan Clark Stealth headphone.

 

This is as transparent of a chain as you can get.

And you know this how? Let me guess…you measured transparency of these components? Or determined how transparent they are by the results of your measurements?

Also, you heard no difference between Nordost and generic cables. Well there are two possible reasons as to why…

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

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

To my earlier point…. Your testing is flawed on many levels and like I said in one of my earlier posts, your listening tests are too far from a real life scenarios. No one in their right state of mind would be running Nordost Tyr 2 cables with Topping and that goes for the crowd on both sides of the fence.

@amir_asr ...I am not a paid reporter as to sit there and take copious notes.

...All in all, a few rooms did stand out and one was Dutch and Dutch.

So turns out you don’t need to spend that much money to get superb sound (although $15K is not cheap).

------------------------------

Thanks for the clarification about your approach and what stood out to you at the PNW audio show.  

@daveyf 

If one has no real life frame of reference as to the sound of 'live' musical instruments in a non-amplified setting, then just relying on measurements might not be a bad idea. 

Hi Dave.  Long time no see.  On your comment, measurements are a great idea no matter what.  Ask any acousticians how to optimize the bass response in a room: they say to measure.  It doesn't matter how much you know some music.  Knowing that you have a peak at 40 and not 50 Hz won't come from that.  It will come from measurements.

And of course, what is on the recoding is not a copy of the live experience.  No microphone can capture what your two ears and a brain do in live music.  And of course that is on top of all the manipulations done in mixing and mastering of music.  It is best to think of a recording as a painting of real life, not a photograph.  In that sense, familiarity with real instruments won't help you.  This is why musicians as a rule are not audiophiles.

" Knowing the measurements before listening causes objectivists to be anything but objective. They are already biased. "

"Say that to your doctor next time he makes measurements of your health and then diagnoses what is wrong with you. Tell him to just trust his ears and hands. No need for X-ray, MRI, blood pressure, etc. You know, the measurement stuff that biases him. "

So you deny that knowing the measurements before listening may cause bias?

How could it be a blind test then? It’s worse than just physically seeing them and seeing what make they are or their price.

Hahaha. Love it. Thanks for the recommendation. 
Listing my Tyr 2 interconnects, along with my Bricasti M3 DAC and Pass Labs XP22 preamp. Going to replace these two pieces with a Topping D70. 
Bad news is, I will have shitty sound. Good news is, I will save a bunch of money on cables and components by switching to Topping. 

"The ASR site seems to confirm this by rarely even mentioning sound quality of a measured component and doesn't even try to find any correlation between Amir's measurements and sound quality."

Is that right?  Here is my latest speaker review: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/focal-solo6-st6-monitor-review.45784/

"On first playback, I was impressed by the dynamics and level of bass, in addition to clean sound. I could have lived with the speaker as is but thought I should play with EQ to see if I can improve on it:

Pulling down the 60 Hz hump resulted in "tighter" bass but then it was a bit light in that department and the highs stood out more. I dialed in the dip for the highs and that helped but still too much of a trade off. So I added the third filter in upper bass to fill that region. With all three there, I liked the sound better. Clarity was improved and vocals came more to the forefront. But I could see someone liking the stock sound as well given the small amount of adjustment here.

I could detect no distortion even after the clipping light came on. On that note, the above EQ postponed the onset of the light by a bit, getting me more volume. I could only detect some muddiness starting to set in as the clipping light was more on than off. Playing music with extreme sub-bass resulted in playback of such with mild amount of distortion. Many speakers either don't play these notes or severely distort them.

With the EQ in there, I could sit there and enjoy the speaker for hours."

This is not telling you how it sounded?  And the significant correlation between measurements and listening test results?

Here is a recent headphone review: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/dan-clark-audio-ether-flow-1-1-headphone-review.45821/

Dan Clark Audio Ether Flow 1.1 Listening Tests & EQ
The immediate impression was that of the somewhat exaggerated upper bass/warmth. You could listen to them as is because it is not annoying in any regard. But EQ is mandatory to bring out what this headphone can do. The complex shape of the deviations made it a bit difficult but I managed to get there up to a few kHz:

Strategy was a dip for the resonant peak and then two PEQs to boost the whole region. Upper bass was pulled down and low bass pulled up to taste. Depending on good your high frequency hearing is, you may want to play with pulling those resonant peaks down as well.

Me? I was satisfied and was blown away by the incredible fidelity I was hearing with those 5 filters. The track you see on the snapshot of Roon was to die for with amazing resolution and detail. You cold almost feel the strings courtesy of very nice spatial qualities.

The high sensitivity allowed my RME ADI-2 Pro to drive them up to as high a level as I wanted with thundering bass that resonated the cups and my ear! I wish I didn't have to take pictures of the headphone for the review so I could keep listening to them!

Let say that I did not expect to be able to correct the response as well as I did. It was tempting to just write off the headphone and not bother. But owner had told me to try so I am glad I did."

Translation: you haven't spent a quality minute on ASR to be making the claims you just did.  Poster after poster uses talking points fed to them about what ASR is.  Reality and facts seem to not be important.

OK Amir, I will help the activity over at ASR.  Your impressive efforts here have won me over.

I'm going over there right now and argue that measurements mean next to nothing.

That should help.... 

:)

If one has no real life frame of reference as to the sound of 'live' musical instruments in a non-amplified setting, then just relying on measurements might not be a bad idea. 

@audphile1 

I just measured my interconnects.
 

To my surprise, Amir was wright. Nordost cables measure like 💩. The 1m pair is 99.9998 cm long. And the 2m pair is longer than the 1m pair. 

Last I checked, your ruler wants nothing to do with your audio cables.  So I suggest not forcing a marriage between them this way.

Also, I checked out a Nordost Tyr Coax cable and showed that it has slightly better performance than my generic cable: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/nordost-tyr-2-review-coax-cable.35507/

Sadly for them and you, it didn't result in better sound:

Nordost Tyr2 Cable Listening Tests
I fed the output of the Topping D70s into Topping A90 Discrete. The latter then drove my Dan Clark Stealth headphone. This is as transparent of a chain as you can get. I then swapped between RG58 coax cable and Nordost TYR2. Switching time is long for super accurate assessment but I detected no difference whatsoever. My reference tracks sound as beautiful with either cable.

I suggest you sell it and get your money back.  Not on the basis of my measurements mind you, but said ruler.....

Eyery time this word appears can’t help but bust out laughing hysterically.

biased ... is a cancerous Witch word.

" Knowing the measurements before listening causes objectivists to be anything but objective. They are already biased.  "

Say that to your doctor next time he makes measurements of your health and then diagnoses what is wrong with you.  Tell him to just trust his ears and hands.  No need for X-ray, MRI, blood pressure, etc.  You know, the measurement stuff that biases him. 

For that matter, because you are a human being just like your doctor, surely you can diagnose what is wrong with you yourself.  You don't need no measurements or someone else to tell you what is wrong with *you*.

I just measured my interconnects.
 

To my surprise, Amir was wright. Nordost cables measure like 💩. The 1m pair is 99.9998 cm long. And the 2m pair is longer than the 1m pair. 

Still you do not address the fact that you you continue to recommend products after they have been shown to have poor build quality. Ashamed or embarrassed perhaps?
To answer your question, Why do you not do your own research and look at Erin's site?l.

Addressing last part first, I told you that Erin uses the same Klippel NFS system that I have.  Indeed, he purchased his after I did.  You vehemently disagreed so I asked you to tell me what gear he is using.  Clearly you got the answer: he uses the same machine and even same protocol and reporting.  So in the future, please don't shoot from the hip without getting your facts straight first.

On the first comment, there is not one audio reviewer who provides what you are demanding.  Stereophile, Absolute Sound, etc. all publish recommended yearly list of gear.  Not once do they follow up with any reliability comments or corrections.

On my side, to anyone with common sense, it is clear that I am testing the performance of a product, not its short or long term reliability.  If I see a problem during testing, I will absolutely stop, note it and review is aborted.  See this example: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/behringer-b2031a-measurement-broken-sample.31717/

You also say I "keep" recommending.  I don't do any such thing.  I recommend a product based testing I performed at the time.  Not at the current moment.  

All of this said, if people bring it to my attention that something is seriously wrong, I will go back and address.  At times, I have actually have gone and bought the product at my expense (if I still don't have it) and verify the issue.  This is then noted and if I have leverage with a manufacturer, I put pressure on them to fix.  Here again is an example: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/smsl-m500-dac-and-hp-amp-review.9606/post-822300

"I finally got a chance to confirm the problem with the right channel being driven by itself causing much higher distortion. Review is updated with it:

Recommendation of the product has been deleted in the review and members are cautioned about this problem.
I have also formally asked SMSL to respond to this issue."

When the response didn't come in a timely and proper manner, I pushed harder resulting in company setting up local firmware updates in both US and Europe.

Ultimately it is just one of me and hundreds of products being reviewed each.  My job is to evaluate them from performance point of view using specialized equipment knowledge.  You all bear the responsibility to figure out if the product is reliable or functional.  Fortunately, ASR Forum is a wonderful resource for this.  Review threads routinely never die with owners posting questions, comments, etc.  Manufacturers routinely read and follow these threads as well.  So while not ideal, what you are demanding is happening.

If you want more, then you need to become part of the solution than the problem.  Don't keep throwing rocks and false talking points as what we are doing on ASR.  Help support the activity so that over time, there can be more resources than just me to follow up on products and extend the reach of what we are doing.

"It doesn't matter if you are or are not invested in the outcome: you can still arrive at totally wrong conclusions.  All I have to do is make one product louder than the other and get you to say it sounds better even if you were primed to think it wouldn't.  And indeed, it can sound massively better with more detail, blacker backgrounds, etc". 

Yeah but I varied the volume while comparing.   I arrived at the right conclusion.  I heard it.  DIdn't need much other than common sense.  

I listened to them.  They were different.  

 Knowing the measurements before listening causes objectivists to be anything but objective. They are already biased.  

@1extreme 

The ASR site seems to confirm this by rarely even mentioning sound quality of a measured component and doesn't even try to find any correlation between Amir's measurements and sound quality.

I find it utterly bizarre that you have actually spent much time on ASR and came away with that clearly false impression.

Amir is constantly pointing out issues with measurements and gives subjective impressions, often between the component with the measured flaws, vs trying to correct them with EQ etc.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/wilson-audio-tunetot-review-high-end-bookshelf-speaker.29219/

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/focal-chora-816-speaker-review.42988/

Review after review correlates measurements with audible consequences!

The only way I can imagine you drew your impression was looking for reviews of gear where measurable quirks were below the threshold of audibility, hence Amir does not comment on them.  In other words "Amir never comments on the different sound between my favorite cable, or DAC, or amp..."

It is very simple : we can see with our ears but we cannot hear with our eyes» --Groucho Marx becoming blind 🤓

Alrighty then, blame the game on selective eye hearing ... apparently we need more training listening to each other.

Eyes can be overrated @mahgister. If a personal life changing decision were made deciding whether eyes over ears are kept, these eyes would see the chopping block, pronto! Imagine a life without the music. No thanks ....

YES! Amir did change my mind. I used to think his measurements were meaningful and followed them closely. But over time I came to realize that his measurements were irrelevant to what mattered to me, specifically the sound quality of audio components. The ASR site seems to confirm this by rarely even mentioning sound quality of a measured component and doesn't even try to find any correlation between Amir's measurements and sound quality.

re you certain of this?

Could it not be that the job of the brain is to ensure our survival and a strict adherence to the laws of physical reality is not necessarily a key requisite?

No not at all... Psycho-acoustic is based not only on physics but on neurophysiology of perception and social behaviour ... It is ridiculous to say that the brain adhere PASSIVELY to physical reality in sound recognition , because the brain PICK and FILTER physical reality through MEANINGS and project them in a symbolic world of his own, for example music perception and speech......You called it illusion in a derogatory manner, but all illusions are not equal ... What do you think a rainbow is ? a pure physical phenomenon ? a mere illusion ? ... Not at all... It takes a human brain to perceive these colors and not these other one and they are REAL ILLUSION for us and useful illusion ....Your measures compared to rainbows may become illusionary reality and biases of a sterile nature, because hearing is more complex than what you describe and less prone to deception than what you think ... But hearing must be trained by experience not by debunking methods.. We must learn how to listen...In acoustic and in music...

And sound perception is not merely only AN OBJECTIVE phenomenon but a phenomenon based on subjective relation to our social speech recognition power and through it to the subjectivity multidimensional aspects and to the way the brain treat time perception OUT OF THE PHYSICAL TIME DIMENSION...Musical time for example is not reducible to physical thermodynamical and metronomical time ... Ask Furtwangler ...

And Who is this person who speak to me, i can sense it very deeply and it is a subjective perception through hearing not at all based on mere physical reality.........Yes we may be deceived times to times , but in history we were not generally deceived , we survived thanks to this power of social recognition ...

« It is very simple : we can see with our ears but we cannot hear with our eyes» --Groucho Marx becoming blind 🤓

+1 @prof

If you are going to slag someone publicly, don’t complain if they show up to set the record straight.

Note too that he's taking this abuse. He's not calling the mommy-moderator to get their comments deleted, as has happened to some of us. Agree or disagree with the guy, he wears big-boy pants. 

@amir_asr
Still you do not address the fact that you you continue to recommend products after they have been shown to have poor build quality. Ashamed or embarrassed perhaps?
To answer your question, Why do you not do your own research and look at Erin's site?l.
To answer a slanderous comment: I have no bias against Chinese products, in fact the exact opposite is the truth. Consonance is a great brand for example. I am biased against poor sounding and built equipment.
Anyway, I am done with this back and forth - you have shown your true colours yet again.

@texbychoice 

Amir is like the Jehovah Witness that appears at your door uninvited.  Polite no thank you does not deter the conversion sermon.  Eventually, the door has to be closed only resulting in a louder voice continuing the sermon.  

Translation:   We'd like to be able to slag Amir and his site publicly, without any push-back or correction to any nonsense we may be spreading.

Nah.

If you are going to slag someone publicly, don't complain if they show up to set the record straight. 

@soundfield  it is laughable he is doing the very thing he says others should not do. 

@amir_asr how much money have you made from ASR directing traffic to your audio business? That doesnt seem very objective to me. The idea that other people don't monetize off of ASR is bull. Purite audio, Siberg, and many others have their wares that they are constantly promoting. Talking up products they sell and talking down ones they do not. There is no such thing as objectivity I'm afraid.

Debunking cable makers is Ok for me thanks for the work and information ... The same is true for any falsified specs of any piece of gear , thanks Amir...

But claiming you will show what i will hear or not with loudness level measures and electrical measures on separate piece of gear is too much of a claim for me...There is other acoustic and psycho-acoustic factors involved to analysed sounds perceptive discrimination IN REAL TIME, not with mere electrical measures ... And no subjects is equal to any other one because biases are not only something to be erased or controlled in blind test but also the results of training and useful to develop for our own acoustic work..

All acoustician own "golden ears" as musician does... They dont read only dials mesuring the speakers design to know if an headphone or a speakers in a room are better for them than an other piece for an optimal TIMBRE rendition experience .. They listen to it in real time acoustic optimal condition if possible...Less well designed speakers in a dedicated room for them may sound and will sound most of the times better than some better designed speakers in a bad room or in a non dedicated room...

"Transparency" impression for example are not only a quality of the design of the gear, but also a quality manifested in real time listening in some acoustic environment with the "transparent" component linked to other less or better transparent component ... Then the experience of "transparency" cannot be deduced by one piece of measured gear, not even by all pieces measured but must be evaluated by some specific pair of ears in specific acoustic conditions at the end... The room must give "transparency" to and help and compensate for the speakers and my ears limitations too... Transparency is not only a POTENTIAL property of a design but the ACTUAL quality perceived in real time listening experience...No reading of measured specs has the last word here...

Time factor not only loudness and spectral envelope but the time envelope play a role IN REAL TIME LISTENING discrimination ... And human hearing is immersed in an ecological natural environment where there exist A DIRECTION IN TIME or as it is said in the article above : "Many sounds in nature are produced by an abrupt transfer of energy followed by slow, damped decay, and hence have broken time-reversal symmetry." Sound quality dont reduce to linear spectral forms analysis...And the way we perceive sounds is also related to the way we produce sound ( ecological theory of sounds perception ) .... Than measuring gear does not reveal the sound quality, at most it can eliminate bad design and reveal potential better one, thanks to Amir for that ... Going further and accusing people to be deluded if they dont act MAINLY on the basis of the measured specs design is going to much farther from acoustic truth... Debunking is not a method for training hearing neither is blind test by itself...Acoustic is...

@amir_asr 

All I have to do is make one product louder than the other and get you to say it sounds better even if you were primed to think it wouldn't.  And indeed, it can sound massively better with more detail, blacker backgrounds, etc. 

Yet, if I match levels that difference instantly disappears.  

Quite true, but until it's been demonstrated it will be difficult to understand.

I used to compare different masterings of the some favourite albums and was surprised to find many of the initial 'night and day' differences more or less disappeared once I'd matched the sound levels.

It's exactly like many of those optical illusions where what you see and what actually is appear to be at odds.

@mahgister 

Our brain Amir is not primary in the job of "fabricating facts" he put us in relation to reality to begin with, if it was otherwise we will not have survives his tricking  illusions.

Are you certain of this?

Could it not be that the job of the brain is to ensure our survival and a strict adherence to the laws of physical reality is not necessarily a key requisite?

A headful of delusions does not particularly appear to stop many people from living long lives.

The propagation of mass delusion has been a keen weapon in the hands of those who would seek to exploit and abuse us, has it not?

One that has worked extremely well so far, has it not?

It's quite easy to lose sight of the fact that we as audiophiles are a tiny minority of the human race.

A tiny minority that often can't seem to agree over the most trivial matters.

Sometimes not even in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence that has not been bought or bribed in some way.

I do agree this conversation is probably just going nowhere.

I’ve asked myself this same question endless times. Okay, rewind & repeat ... reread all posts, maybe I’ve overlooked some eluded wording of importance in search of an elusive common ground amongst certain members or (all members). Amir, by adding "certain" to your already written sentence was by no means a insult. It’s more than welcomed there in observance of & considering where we are. Give me something tangible to work with please. And for the record, I have never once said here on this forum are anywhere else for that matter regarding "Science" as unworthy. 

why he hates Erins audio

Erin ruined egomaniac Amirs status as the only/coolest kid in town with a Klippel.

The irony of accusing Erin of monetizing his channel when "impartial" Amir is a full blown Harman dealer....

@texbychoice that's a big part of the problem. If I were to raise some of these issues with measurements or why he hates Erins audio, which to me is fair game if he gets to call his titles clickbait, I would be booted from ASR very quickly.

I do agree this conversation is probably just going nowhere. It's like two sides of the political aisle. 

Posts here from Amir have reached double digits.  One included a picture of numerous items waiting to be measured.  Quite the backlog of pro bono work needing attention while posts to this forum pile up?

Amir is like the Jehovah Witness that appears at your door uninvited.  Polite no thank you does not deter the conversion sermon.  Eventually, the door has to be closed only resulting in a louder voice continuing the sermon.  

By now everybody should have heard enough.  Join ASR and discuss measurements to your hearts content, or follow another path.

Okay @amir_asr enlighten us.

But here is the trick, and it is a good one, you can get superbly transparent for a lot less money than products with much less chance of transparency!  Amazing progress has been made by companies that are dedicated to proper engineering and science to eradicate any audible impairments.  A $100 DAC indeed can run circles around a $10,000 one, no ifs and buts about.

Until this is learned and really internalized, certain audiophiles will continue to make the wrong choices in their selection of audio gear.

You’re a fast talker ... so I thought I’d insert a possible typo.

"In fact measurements are just another way to be fooled.  One might argue that knowing a piece measures well causes more bias than if we knew nothing about the measurements.  So in fact the objectivists may be more subjective and biased and deluded than those that do not know a thing about the measurements.  They think, oh, well, that DAC measured great on ASR so it must sound good.  So it sounds good to them.  "

First, we don't evaluate measurements in a vacuum.  If I measure noise at -80 dB, I can demonstrate conclusively that it could be audible based on playback level. Conversely, if the noise level is at -120 dB, I can tell you that it is 5 dB better than best case threshold of hearing so absolutely inaudible.  See how we combine measurements with psychoacoustics science which completely relies on listening tests?  

As a more complex example, look at how much noise is bleeding into this power cable I measured:

That is the red/blue graph.  Now pay attention to that green curve.  That is threshold of hearing.  Clearly the noise is below that for both samples.  Ergo, they won't make an audible difference.  Here measurements powerfully tell you what is going on.

In other cases, yes, if I showed distortion at -80 dB vs -130 dB, we can't quickly assess if the former truly has audible distortion to everyone's ears.  As it happens, audiophiles are terrible at detecting non-linear distortions.  So to them the -80 dB product could be just as transparent as the -130 dB one.  What we can do is again, prove that the -130 dB distortion product is completely transparent to the source.

But here is the trick, and it is a good one, you can get superbly transparent for a lot less money than products with much less chance of transparency!  Amazing progress has been made by companies that are dedicated to proper engineering and science to eradicate any audible impairments.  A $100 DAC indeed can run circles around a $10,000 one, no ifs and buts about.

Again, the distortion and noise in the $10,000 DAC may not be audible to you.  Which is fine.  Just don't say that because it is expensive it must be better.  Or that you did this and that listening test that proved the same.  Both are completely faulty assumptions.

Members who frequent ASR don't just read a number or graph.  After a short while, they start to learn the meaning behind them and more than capable to not run with "oh, it has lower distortion so it must sound better." That is a label you are incorrectly putting on us and doesn't reflect reality. 

Hang around on ASR long enough and you will be exposed to incredible amount of discussion around audio science in all aspects.  I guarantee you that you will know more about this hobby than spending years arguing with people elsewhere.

So please don't keep making stuff up about who we are and what we do.  Learn who we are and what we do and then tell us it is wrong.

"I just think that we need to give more credit to the imperfect listening tests that we all do.   I have sat and A/B' d between sources like phono stages and DACs and knowing what they are had no influence on how they sounded.   I wasn't invested either way.  I truly wanted to know how they compared.  Sometimes even forgetting which I had on which input.  Sometimes I wanted the less expensive one to sound better for instance.  And it didn't."

It doesn't matter if you are or are not invested in the outcome: you can still arrive at totally wrong conclusions.  All I have to do is make one product louder than the other and get you to say it sounds better even if you were primed to think it wouldn't.  And indeed, it can sound massively better with more detail, blacker backgrounds, etc.  Yet, if I match levels that difference instantly disappears.  

Our hearing is also bi-directional and highly elastic (variable) making such tests very difficult to do correctly in the manner you are going about it.  Here is a real example.

Jason Victor Serinus is one of the stereophile reviewers who lives close to our audiophile group.  He was kind enough to invite us to his home.  Once there, we broke into two groups, taking turns to listen to a new amplifier he had under review.  Group one went in and came out and without saying anything to us, we went and listened.  There, Jason played his own amplifier against the unit under review.  At the end, he asked which sounded better.  Majority voted one way.  I did not vote because I could not at all assess a difference in such a test.

We then adjourned and went back to where first group was. They immediately asked which amplifier we voted was better.  The group expressed that to amazement of group one as the had picked the exact opposite!  We are talking two groups of 10 to 15 audiophiles arriving at completely different conclusion after listening to the same comparison!

Clearly you can't have two versions of truth.  So what went wrong?  Jason said that the problem was the order.  He had played the amplifiers in reverse order for our group as opposed to the first.  This is a problem as we tend to scrutinize the sound of the second item in a comparison more as we pay more attention and hear more detail, etc.  We get around this in proper blind test by a) randomizing what is playing and b) repeating the test enough times to rule out faulty voting.

Really, if casual tests were good enough we would do them all the time in industry and research community.  But we don't because we know they generate completely wrong results.  They just do.  Until this is learned and really internalized, audiophiles will continue to make the wrong choices in their selection of audio gear.  And waste money on tons of stuff that does nothing for the sound.  The science of our perception and audio is conclusive here.

Having said all of this, what you do for yourself is fine. But please don't put it forward as the poster did with that "minion" comment as if you are on the side of right.  You are anything but. 

I used measurements today making cookies. 

"I understand what you are saying but he said that he did not know brand or price and still found a difference, and that's good enough for me.  It seems like you doubted his conclusions due to it not being a perfect blind test.  People find that insulting.  Rightly so.  "

What do you mean "rightly so?"  If heaven forbid you get cancer and you go to your doctor and say you are taking megavitamins and it is curing your cancer, you think him telling you that is not evidence of it working, you consider than an insult?  I hope not.  He wants reliable data, not anecdotes.

You say the test was not a "perfect blind."  How do you know how blind it was?  Did he match levels?  Did he repeat it enough times to rule out chance?  A one-time AB test without level matching generates nothing useful.

And comments like this tells me the test was not blind at all: "I can tell you that the Topping I listened to sounded like crap with female voices. So do not tell me like some of your minions post, that all well measuring Dacs sound the same.""

His bias toward cheap/chinese products is showing from a mile away.  In addition to that, we know what he says is hugely improperable.  I have tested the Topping DAC and its distortion and noise is below threshold of hearing.  Against this landscape, he needs to provide far more than an anecdote. 

Again, he could be right but the only way to prove it against a mountain of evidence to the contrary is to at least make a half plan to do a blind test.  Don't do pretend blind tests.  They are of no value.  I cover all of this in a video I did after I got tired of industry people claiming that the tests they do are "blind:"

https://youtu.be/vRG8TaxGcbU

"Honestly - the report so far has no helpful descriptions or details about how things really sounded at the show, with a lack of descriptive detail.  Also noting very limited praise for many systems we are familiar with, particularly with high cost systems. High cost systems can sound good too, yet there is limited reporting.  "

They can.  But I can only report what I heard based on music they played when I was there.  Many people enjoy seeing what was there, and what music was played there.  And a word or two about that experience.  That you find no value in that is fine.  Many of your fellow audiophiles disagree.

As I noted in those threads, at other shows manufacturers would pause and talk about the technology on display.  No company did that so I had nothing to share on that front.

Other than this, I am not a paid reporter as to sit there and take copious notes.  Many non-paid posters who cover every suite as I do just post pictures and nothing else. 

Also keep in mind that these show reports are meant to be timely.  Folks lose interest if you cover them weeks later.  To that end, I spent two entire day and night preparing and posting what you saw as the show was going on.  As it is, I was up until 2 or 3 am posting images, looking up songs, etc.

As to high end system, yes, they can be capable but if system is not optimized for the room -- and scant few were -- then the sound is not going to be that great.  Ditto if they play whatever they want instead of asking what the audience wants to hear.

All in all, a few rooms did stand out and one was Dutch and Dutch.  Stereophile reporter and local reporter Jason, agreed with the same and voted them as the best there was.  So turns out you don't need to spend that much money to get superb sound (although $15K is not cheap).

Amir said...."I do too!  There is no question that is what he perceived.  It is just that we don't know if that depended on the actual output of said DACs or other extraneous factors.  Our brain is a wonderful thing when it comes to manufacturing facts.  To make sure that is not happening, we only trust listening tests where only the sound is involved, not the rest of your senses. "

I understand what you are saying but he said that he did not know brand or price and still found a difference, and that's good enough for me.  It seems like you doubted his conclusions due to it not being a perfect blind test.  People find that insulting.  Rightly so.  

I just think that we need to give more credit to the imperfect listening tests that we all do.   I have sat and A/B' d between sources like phono stages and DACs and knowing what they are had no influence on how they sounded.   I wasn't invested either way.  I truly wanted to know how they compared.  Sometimes even forgetting which I had on which input.  Sometimes I wanted the less expensive one to sound better for instance.  And it didn't.

I guess my point is that, yes, we are subject to subjectivity and measurements can keep us a little more sober about that, but generally speaking our ears do a pretty good job, how it sounds to us is all that matters and measurements will not tell us that.  All that can be heard cannot be measured. And what we hear is more important than any measurement.  

In fact measurements are just another way to be fooled.  One might argue that knowing a piece measures well causes more bias than if we knew nothing about the measurements.  So in fact the objectivists may be more subjective and biased and deluded than those that do not know a thing about the measurements.  They think, oh, well, that DAC measured great on ASR so it must sound good.  So it sounds good to them.  

@amir_asr 

"Do you ever seat down and just enjoy your music like a normal human being?"

--------------

What? Of course I do. I am at desk testing gear for good number of hours every day. All of that is spent listening to music. This is good number of hours per day.

I recently came back from Pacific Audio Fest 2023 and not only did a bunch of listening there, I was the only reviewer posting what music was played there. See my trip reports:

------------

Okay, so I just completed reading all 14 pages of your show report on the ASR forum. Some nice Photos.  I was paying attention to lots of complaints about costs of equipment, or complaints about speaker positioning in the rooms.  A few nice compliments about exhibitors listing components, pricing sheets, and measurements. A few comments such as "sounds decent", or "bright" or "open".  Pretty vague, not descriptive, and no explanation beyond single words at most.  

Honestly - the report so far has no helpful descriptions or details about how things really sounded at the show, with a lack of descriptive detail.  Also noting very limited praise for many systems we are familiar with, particularly with high cost systems. High cost systems can sound good too, yet there is limited reporting.  

Other than some nice photos, reading the 14 pages posted so far was kind of a waste of time for me.  There seems to be a real gap in describing how things sound in a manner folks here on Audiogon can truly appreciate or understand. Perhaps we can ask the question in another way to learn more.  

ASK: 

With your expertise in measurements, can you also share something more about a system that you really like and enjoy?  Then describe how it sounds, and why it sounds great to you? In what ways?

I get the impression that the walls at Amir's place have lots of indents about forehead high scattered about. Some of them with bloody stains.

All the best,
Nonoise

Perhaps you are a bit biased...😊

What about my last post and article ?

Here a test of basic reading abilities: read this article and explain to me why this article is important in acoustic , and how it matter about our discussion... At least i will see if someone know how to read... Nobody reacted to this article , i posted it twice here FOR A REASON...If nobody does understand why it matter to this preposterous war between ears and electrical tools , i will go back to music..😊

And what about my argument? They are all occupied by punching each other in the most absurd way...

Objectivists and subjectivists are twin brothers born from marketing with their focus on the gear, by ears golden or not, or by measurements...... For me and for science audio experience is about acoustical, electrical and mechanical embeddings not about gear choices...Science in audio is basically acoustic before engineering... And in my room too it is acoustic before engineering... Anybody can pick good gear at relatively low price today... The problem is his embeddings and controls for the ears of the owner because he experience sound in a determined acoustic field : his room......

In audio there is one basic science, which is multi-disciplinary, it is psycho-acoustic, not electrical engineering with blind test which is secondary technology answering mainly market design inquiries, thats all......

There is only ONE WAY to train hearing: it is acoustic experiments... Not blind test of gear... Are you serious? 😊

This is the most absurd discussion I have ever read on Audiogon (and there have been plenty of contenders).

 

There certainly is a lot of absurdity, but there’s also lots of good content as well (much of it from Amir).

@kahlenz

This is the most absurd discussion I have ever read on Audiogon (and there have been plenty of contenders).

There certainly is a lot of absurdity, but there’s also lots of good content as well (much of it from Amir).

I understand the fascination with measurements, but I can’t objectify my enjoyment of music.

Who do you think is actually doing that?

You know audio engineering is not the same as "music," right? Audio engineering involves quantification to understand what is going on so the engineer can take the right steps towards getting what he wants to achieve.

Nobody is "objectifying" their enjoyment of music. Whatever music you enjoy is totally subjective, and no (normal) engineer would say otherwise.

You may as well say "I don’t care to objectify my call to my mother on my iphone." Well of course not. But the engineering behind your iphone relies on objectively verifiable results in order for you to have that phone to enjoy conversations with your mom.

somethingsomethingaudio

... you attack the other like kids in the sandbox shoving the other for a toy, not really answering the pertinent questions. 

Answering questions isn't the goal. Creating drama, fabricating "excitement," polarizing one group against another as a way to perpetuate influence, those are the goals. The show must go on! Most of these YouTubers are just clowns.

AMIR - He's Baaaaaack!  

While people have a wide range of audio sound preferences, I do not comprehend the religion among many high/higher end speaker manufacturers to produce perfectly flat frequency response measurements.  You could give me Wilsons, Magicos, et.al. perfectly measuring speakers and I would not accept them, nor would my friends, my mastering engineer friends (for home use) or many other speaker manufacturers and dealers.  Musicality, maybe ineffable to many people, is the goal, not as mesuring instrument.  If the sound of whatever type of music does not emotionally engage, then it is generally not the direction audiophilia should take. Unfortunately, many serious music listeners (that includes mid-fi as well, lower cost equipment, older used equipment, et.al.) miss the boat relying on measurements and design proclamations.  Often, they lack an educated ear, not knowing or having experienced musically involving audio systems.  

Some listeners prefer extreme resolution, detail and others prefer body, color and dynamics.  There's a speaker and audio gear for everyone at every price point.  However, based on measurements over an educated ear for listening is foolish method of creating a satisfying audio system.  That's my opinion. 

@mahgister 

+1

Our brain Amir is not primary in the job of "fabricating facts" he put us in relation to reality to begin with, if it was otherwise we will not have survives his tricking  illusions ...And our brain is here to be trained not to read electrical measures as hearing truth...Amir you resemble a marketer selling gear like a twin...Sorry...Why not stay an informant about gear falsification and not to claim  what people will hear based on electrical measures dials ?

And no acoustician work blindfold and in a blind test...Guess why ?

Anybody can acquire hearing training in his own room...

it is ridiculous to reduce what we are hearing to dac specs and blindfold test...

You must debunk market gear claims thanks for the information... thats all all, because  what is added after that is technological cultism...

But thinking that people are passive consumers only and are unable to train themselves to acoustically embed their gear but must listen your measures to buy what they will listen to, if not, their "brain will fabricated reality" is beyond preposterous...

If many subjectivist audiophiles are deluded, i think many objectivists are deluded too... It is funny that i am among the few to see what they linked them to each other in antagonistic ridiculous wars like twins : psycho-acoustic ignorance of hearing and acoustic and obsession with gear components......

@amir_asr You and AJ need to have a panel on YouTube or a sound off somewhere. I'd pay to see it. So much sexual tension there. 

Amir, you didn't address your old posts where you didnt level match. Neither of you get to extol the virtues of one thing and then switch mid-race to pretend you always were on the other side. I mean you can but then you both are hypocrites. 

There are some lessons and info to be learned but you both are the reason I dislike the term audiophile and this world in general. You both sell speakers. 

I won't use ASR anymore and I wouldn't buy AJs speakers even you paid me. You two are insufferable. You'd be awesome politicians because you attack the other like kids in the sandbox shoving the other for a toy, not really answering the pertinent questions. 

@laoman 

""Indeed, his measurements are patterned after mine and using exactly the same measurement gear."

WRONG. He no longer uses what you use."

Oh yeh? What does he use?  

"I for one believe you.  Imagine that.  Trusting how something sounds!    "

I do too!  There is no question that is what he perceived.  It is just that we don't know if that depended on the actual output of said DACs or other extraneous factors.  Our brain is a wonderful thing when it comes to manufacturing facts.  To make sure that is not happening, we only trust listening tests where only the sound is involved, not the rest of your senses. 

You don't believe me?  Allow me to call my expert witness who has shown up in this thread, AJ (Soundfiled).  This is what he had to say on discussion of whether an external DAC improves the sound of an Oppo player:  https://www.avsforum.com/threads/using-oppo-bdp-95-as-source-is-outboard-dac-going-to-make-a-difference.1389093/page-2

"Then you don't need to spend more than $100 to replace your presumably failing/broken Sony BDP. If transparent audio signal transfer is your concern."

[...]

"I didn't say that [that two dacs don't sound different]. My position is that I don't see any evidence whatsoever to support the notion that it does. And no, the blathering of ignorant crazy people and fabricated "tests" online isn't evidence to support superior DAC sound. It's evidence to support ignorance, craziness and truly infantile and sad resorts, like fabrications."

AJ, you want to take over from here?  Strange to see you silent given how much you hate stuff like this.

I think we often misinterpret measurements; measurements are measurements regardless of ones biases on liking the equipment in question. For example, a speaker’s frequency response can tell you if a speaker will sound flat, or neutral or bright regardless of what you may like. Amir has demonstrated that some highly regarded amps measured not so well when compared to lower cost ones, does date mean the lower cost sounds better? I would argue that yes and no. The higher costly amp that measured not favorable is what probably makes it more appealing when listening due to the inherent or added distortion by design when listening. Just like tube amps that measured poorly when compared to solid state but that distortion from tubes is what attracts us. So, in away Amir has not changed my mind but has brought awareness when looking at a product.