Did Amir Change Your Mind About Anything?

@prof read the review. Amir doesnt recommend it because of the price...

Show me the science where it states that room treatment is bogus, and people dont need it to help with the eq in their room?

Room treatments are not bogus. Telling people to go and slap them on their walls in their living room as otherwise their sound is crap, is bogus.

It is beyond the scope of this conversation to provide you more education on that. I have put a ton of research data in this thread as I have post. Bottom line is, if you have not spent considerable amount of time getting educated here, or at least read Dr. Toole’s book cover to cover a couple of times, you have no business opining on this topic.

@amir_asr My reputation isnt on the line unlike yours. You have no business calling treaments crap.

Fwiw I recently applied a packaged convolution filter in Roon DSP for my Sennheiser Momentum headphones and the results are staggering. Modern DSP processing done right is a very powerful tool indeed.

The results push me closer to carving out time to try and create my own convolution filters for my various rooms at home. It’s more work and just a little cost to create your own. You just need a decent mike that costs ~130 dollars and free software to create the filter. I’m very confident that could be one of the best $130 I could spend currently for better sound.

I use some minimal room treatments on some rooms currently and none in others where not conducive.

To thoroughly treat most rooms with commercial treatment could cost thousands of dollars to do right. Like Amir I do furnish and set up my rooms wherever possible for better acoustics. Much more cost effective and practical in many cases where one might not have a totally dedicated “listening room”.

I listen in many rooms many different ways all the time. That’s not even including 5 pair of decent quality headphones. I want to hear it all. Variety is the spice of life. That’s just me.

@amir_asr need to point out I did not say what you have me quoted as saying above. I think you made a mistake there.

@somethingsomethingaudio 

@prof read the review. Amir doesnt recommend it because of the price...

You are all over the place. First you said someone was calling "it all" snake oil, when that person had only said he wanted to see good evidence for a dubious claim, to distinguish it from snake oil. It wasn’t "everything expensive is snake oil"

Now you’ve pirouetted to complain that Amir didn’t recommend a $1,000 USB cable due to it’s high price??? Well of course not! He’d just finished showing it’s performance was indistinguishable from a cheap generic USB cable! Why WOULD he turn around and recommend people pay $1,000 for a cable that promises better fidelity, but doesn’t deliver it???

@prof They absolutely do dismiss expensive stuff. Here is one. Amir shows it does the same thing as the less expensive versions, and therefore doesnt recommend it. Explain to me how that is not exactly what youre saying???

These are the marketing claims for that $1000 USB cable:

New micro insulated quad Alumiloy conductors in a very flexible noise rejecting shielded design offers all resolutions of digital audio beyond DSD sampling rates with excellent clarity. As with analog interconnects, excellent low level details and a highly refined sound. Not dull and boring nor thin and bright, this USB cable lets you hear your music through your front end electronics with true clarity and life.

The clear implication is that standard USB cable lacks clarity and sounds dull, boring and thin.  If that was the case, $1000 would be money well spent.  Of course the company provides no proof points for any of this.  No listening tests.  No measurements.  Nothing.  So we roll up our sleeves and check:

32 tones are thrown at the DAC  using this and dirt cheap USB cable.  There is absolutely no difference in frequency response, distortion or noise floor measured down to -140 dB (25 dB below threshold of hearing).

Listening tests were provided:

JPS Superconductor V USB Cable Listening Tests
I connected the output of the Topping D70s to Topping A90 which in turn drove my Dan Clark Stealth headphones ($4000). I used the high gain on the A90 to make sure I could hear any difference in background noise. I started with the JPS cable and the sound was as wonderful as I remembered on my standard reference tracks (which I have listened to hundreds of times). I then switched to the generic USB cable. Surprising (not), it sounded louder and more dynamic! I switched back to the JDS USB cable and difference vanished, leaving me with less perceived fidelity. Of course, this not a valid test as the switching time is way too long to allow proper comparison for small differences. But if folks want to run by "what I heard," I heard the generic USB cable sounding "better."

Those of you who ask "just listen" would have to believe that the generic cable far outperformed this "superconductor."

Conclusions are thus obvious:

"Conclusions
USB cables in short length deliver all the bits correctly. The ground connection though from the PC to DAC is an analog affair so in theory, some difference in noise can be there. If there is, and you can audibly hear something the solution is not another USB cable but to use better isolation (Toslink, XLR cables for interconnects, etc.). Measurements here show that there is no difference even in that department when with a "noisy" source like my desktop workstation PC.

Ad-hoc listening tests as usual produce unreliable results which if taken at face value, put the generic USB cable ahead of the JPS cable! So if you want to go by that, we still don't have anything of value here.

As you can predict by now, I can't recommend the JPS Labs Superconductor V USB. It is just a waste of money compared to any half-decent generic cable."

Company claims were not shown to be true so they charged $995 more than they should have.  They misled customers and took their money.  Nothing at all like a high performance DAC which produces stated of the art performance matching company's claims.

@prof Wait I never called the tact eq box snake oil. The other member of Audiogon did. Then I tried to explain why that argument was somewhat valid but I agree it's not snake oil in the strictest sense. However the jacked up price and added benefit is in fact snake oil. Which you stated. You said this 

 

Great.  So it's not a snake oil product.  And yet you'd quoted Amir saying it wasn't a snake oil product and implied it may as well have been.  That's the sneaky part I was getting at.

Then you said this 

 It's not "snake oil just because it's expensive."  It's snake oil "because they are charging people huge prices on the basis of claiming audibly superior performance" over cheaper cable, and many at ASR are technically proficient enough to explain why the claims are nonsense (and point out how they are virtually never actually demonstrated in any rigorous manner, either by measurements or controlled listening tests...it's all about the usual audiophile anecdotes).

We are saying the same thing. How is the tact $15,000 unit that many times better than any other eq product out there? So amir is touting its greatness which is what was called out as snake oil. He bought into the very products he doesnt recommend. 

@amir_asr Seriously why are you still here? Don't you have some donations to pole dance for?

@mapman 

@amir_asr need to point out I did not say what you have me quoted as saying above. I think you made a mistake there.

Sorry about that. Was just copying and pasting what the person had said.  I took out the member references.

@amir_asr Seriously why are you still here? Don't you have some donations to pole dance for?

I am here because additional points are being raised about who or what ASR is so I am answering.  What on earth have you been doing here from start?  Did you read OP?

@amir_asr Pretty sure you explained what ASR does. It's a science like Scientology!

@prof Wait I never called the tact eq box snake oil. The other member of Audiogon did. Then I tried to explain why that argument was somewhat valid but I agree it's not snake oil in the strictest sense. 

TacT processor was not snake oil in any sense, strict or otherwise.  It was a pioneering system with multi channel Room EQ and digital in and out.  It was what led to Room EQ eventually becoming standard in every AV processor or Receiver you buy today.  It was and has been transformative.

The processor was expensive to build.  Each channel had a dedicated board with its own high performance, dedicated DSP.  It was a marvel of audio engineering:

You are completely out of line with this line of questioning and discussion.

@amir_asr You better ban me. Oh wait you can't because this isnt your forum.

@somethingsomethingaudio 

I give up on playing whack-a-mole as you jump around to different points.

(And btw, the Tact came out when there were very few alternatives to that powerful room correction device.  You just don't seem to know what you are talking about).

ETA:  I see Amir addressed that too.

@prof Okay your call. I was responding to what you said. My point remains that people on ASR call products snake oil based on their expensive price. All day long. 

@prof Here is an entire discussion about snake oil and how it’s based on fraud in a lot of peoples minds. Something that essentially doesnt work at all. Not just dubious claims. People in that thread call magico speakers snake oil. I wouldnt say that’s fair. Overpriced maybe. To use Amirs analogy, then an Icon Bronco is snake oil I guess.

This is from that thread and is probably more accurate "Snake-oil: Does none of the things being claimed other than through the powers of suggestion.

Rip-off: Highly expensive but identical in any meaningful way to products with a vanishingly smaller price tag."

Nobody likes it when somebody rains on their parade  with a handful of select facts. 

People in that thread call magico speakers snake oil.

No they didn't.  The thread title is: "What is the difference between snake oil and rip off, or both are the same?"  So comments are made on both fronts.  This is the magico reference and response

Katji said:

Refer to Magico speakers >$600,000 made with expensive materials like exotic woods and Titanium.

Magico/DCS are the contemporary ‘high-end’ they measure well and have super smart casework. Commensurate performance is available at many multiples of expense less of course.

Reasonable back and forth completely inconsistent with your claim.  Really, this dog don't hunt.  You are just showing that you are not familiar with ASR. 

Yes, it is hard to believe that seeking the straw in our eyes you never seek the beam in your own eyes...

As Feynman really means , FOR you ,is you fool ourself by believing that all biases are equal...

What are Rodman and me our common biases : we confide and trust our ears experience and history, it is the straw in our eyes...

This straw sometimes must be takes off by blind test or the ears must be better trained yes anybody can contest common place evidence...Because not only blind test, but training can replace past erroneous biases with better useful new acquired biases...For sure...

What are the beam in your eyes, the biases you dont see and fool you completely ?

It is from the psycho-acoustic history, and from the Oppenheim and Magnasco experiment which confirmed it, the non linear working of the ears/brain and his working in his OWN TIME DOMAIN , not in a symmetrical independant time domain as ALL linear Fourier tools..

The Oppenheim and Magnasco demonstrated, as many others psycho-acousticians demonstrated and thought it before , that the ears/brain PERCEIVE aspects of sounds in his own acquired evolutive way... it is in this way that we created speech in the same gesture than music in a rythmic, melodic unidirectionality of time ...ears/brain work in this time breaking symmetry and caused it... The ears brain dont perceive sounds linearly what does it means:

it means that higher harmonics are not evaluated by the ears in the same way with the same tonality nor with the same perceived value, it means that " Like vision, hearing — which is to say, the ear–brain system — has a nonlinear response to stimuli. This means that increasing the stimulus by, say, 10%, does not necessarily increase the response by 10%. Instead, it depends on the power and bandwidth of the signal, and on the response of the system itself." it means even more , it means that in an ecological theory of hearing :

"under some circumstances, most importantly in the presence of a detection threshold, adding noise increases the signal-to-noise ratio.

I’ll just let you read that last sentence again.

Add noise to increase S:N? It might seem bizarre, and downright wrong, but it’s actually a fairly simple idea. If a signal is below the detection threshold, then adding a small Goldilocks amount of noise can make the signal ’peep’ above the threshold, allowing it to be detected."

https://agilescientific.com/blog/2014/6/9/the-nonlinear-ear.html

Then All the Fourier linear and TIME INDEPENDANT tools and methods applied so well to the good predictive beahaviour of the designed electronic components so efficient they are, cannot alone by themselves be able to EXPLAIN the ears/brain way of processing sounds as evolution tuned up for natural sounds perception and emission or production in some recursive loop oriented in his own time domain and making us sensible MORE to the burst of a sound and to his decay than to the inverse direction :decay and burst... It is the time symmetry breaking and the creation of his own time domain by the ears/brain...

But for a set of Fourier linear maps, in a time independant way, the direction not only does not matter, but the basic abstract factors as frequencies, amplitude, and phase and duration, must be linearly ordered and interlinked , and are linearly related under the Gabor limits...But Oppenheim And Magnasco demonstrated with SELECTED MUSICIANS WITH TRAINED AND ACQUIRED MUSICAL BIASES, that the ears/brain can beat the Gabor limits or the Fourier uncertainty limits even thirteen times in some case...

Then what is the BEAM in the eyes of the Amir sect: it is the erroneous equation determining with  very small set of linear tools , the Fourier tools used to design gear and electronic components which must well behave linearly in a time independant way, which are now  dogmatically used to characterise all audible qualities  as pertaining to gear "transparency" or to be illusions or artefacts of the deluded brain biases... This dogma is the BEAM in your eyes...It induce a BIAS which you are not conscious of and this bias reduce all Musical qualities perceived by audiophiles or the average people as REAL  MUSICAL QUALITIES,  to be mere illusions of the brain, or mere artefacts, or the biase we must eliminate...

It is this bias acuired by  trained musicians which biases  you want to eliminate that what SELECTED and  used by Oppenheimer and Magnasco, selecting trained musicians to demonstrate how the ears/brain beat the Fourier uncertainty limit by working non linearly and in his own time domain,with this ACQUIRED BIAS as a DETECTING TOOL  for a privileged or biased or favored direction in time , which is the BASIS OF THE ECOLOGICAl theory of hearing, A THEORY BADLY NEEDED IN PSYCHO-ACOUSTIC SCIENCE TO COMPLEMENT THE FOURIER FREQUENCIES BASED THEORY...

Do you understand now why Feynman say that the easiest person to fool is ourself ?

It is because we dont know at what MOMENT in our life, the biases we express would be positive for the results of an experiment or negative for this experiment, or positive for hypothesis or negative for the hypothesis, as Salomon did with his judgement with the two mothers, or as Christ expressed it with the beam and the straw, we must chose the right set of biases or became conscious of them...Sometimes we must listen to ourself not to Amir and sometimes Amir is right... We must learn this timing in our life , if not, we will fool oursself each time...

Then Feynman was not speaking about ELIMINATING all biases indistinctly , which act is impossible generally, and a trivial Barnum like saying,  he ask us to choose the right set of biases...

Biases are inevitable as you know... Think about it then...We must select the right one at the right time...

In his dogmatic marketing for his site and to sell his methods of DEBUNKING, Amir is not interested to replace his biases about the way the ears/brain works, this Fourier based tools and frequency based theory of hearing, the way he used it, is  wrong...The ears/brain perceiving musical qualities dont work as a Fourier computer linearly and in the independant time domain ...These musical qualities are real for a trained ears of an acoustician and a musician or for any self trained person able to tune his room they are not biases we must eliminate IN ALL CASES... But it is not the way  Amir see it as a propagandist of his tools/toys...

No, you wrote in utterly vague circles, never landing on his actual point.

His point clearly had to do with what separates the scientific endeavour from everyday level inferences.

When Fynman says "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool."

That is clearly a warning about the influence of human BIAS in distorting and guidling our conclusions. "You are the easist person to fool" is a reference to how easy it is for us to filter explanations and evidence to fit our desires or biases. In fact, we are easy to fool through various pitfalls in thought, even when we are trying to not be biased. When YOU are the one doing the testing YOUR actions and interpretations will have a blind spot of your own bias.

He admonishes us therefore The first principle is that you must not fool yourself," which means we have to incorporate guardrails against fooling ourslef in to our methods of inquiry.

This is so obvious it’s just hard to believe folks like you and rodman can’t just state what he meant.

Since our biases form such an obvious, first problem in interpreting results, this is why there are various methods of mitigating the influence of bias in scientific testing. It’s why for instance many therapeutic trials are done blind, double and even triple blinded.

It’s why you want to have a hypothesis that is testable by other parties, looking to prove your hypothesis wrong, themselves using safeguards against their own bias effects.

This has OBVIOUS implications for testing audio claims. If for instance sighted bias is a known confounding variable - a prime way of FOOLING YOURSELF - then Feynman’s admonishment clearly indicates you should find a way to rule out that way of FOOLING YOURSELF. Job ONE of the approach he is advocating!

This is why most of the scientific level of research on human perception in general, and much that is available on the perception of audio gear (e.g. the research often cited by Floyd Toole) is done with controls for those variables so the FOOLING YOURSELF part is mitigated as much as possible.

Of course neither you nor anyone else no this forum needs to do scientific-level rigorous research in order to enjoy the hobby or buy whatever you want. But if someone is invoking Feynman in a thread that clearly entails the relevance of science to audio, then at least get what he was saying. You can ignore it...but at least understand it.

 

 

 

 

Amir said this :

Our mission at ASR Forum is to see if a product is well engineered or not.

It will be perfectly weel if it was the case...

But ASR impose through a fanatics kernel of techno babble groupies of him what are the NORM of engineering that will produce REAL sound qualities, the so called "transparency" with no distortions... To do so they negate the ears/brain real working ways , non linear and time dependant, and they bashed and attacked a well known competent  designer using basic psycho-acoustic facts about the way we perceived harmonics signals and accused him bluntly to create BAD DESIGN to please deluded audiophiles...Incredible arrogance coupled to complete ignorance...

Amir called this dogmatic ignorance about psycho-acoustic , science...

And me, who tuned my room using my ears learning concretely acoustic, i am supposed to be the deluded one...😊

No one deny there is information on ASR and useful one...No one deny there is balanced mind people on ASR not only Amir groupies ...

No one can deny there is also  a basic dogmatic ignorance of elementary psycho-acoustic pushed as SCIENCE, because they use some set of  measuring tools..

By the way, i did not used only material treatment with the right ratio for reflective/absorbing/diffusive surface and volume, i created my own large band MECHANICHAL equaliser with one hundred distributed tuned Helmholtz resonators all around critical spots in the room... I used equalization in my own way with SUCCESS...No cost...

Am i deluded ? Yes for Amir...

He read Toole book but never apply it... He trust only tools not his ears...

He think the brain /ears work like a Fourier computer...

He really claim all the phisicists i used to explain all my points were deluded, incompetent or they are as Van Maanen gear seller...

Bad faith at his top expression...

Not a SINGLE argument to counter the fact that we need a non linear and time dependant theory of hearing for interpreting sound qualities real meanings in an ecological theory of hearing and to MEASURE the limits of our Fourier tools themselves  ... it is WHY any acoustician know that the Fourier hearing theory need to be complemented by an ecological hearing Theory... Amir does not know how to spell e-c-o-l-o-g-i-ca-l ... 😊 He never wrote this word to counter it with an argument...

read all his posts...

He sell his tools and site ideology...nothing else...

@prof 

I have over 5,000 posts on ASR.  How many do you have in terms of actual familiarity with day to day content?

And there it is, one of the ASR faithful has joined the effort to hijack Audiogon.  The day to day content on ASR is exactly why the hypocrisy is being called out. 

Stop spreading misinformation, and  then maybe Amir won't have to spend his time showing up to correct it.

Once again, the cult like mantra appears - Amir is right, everyone else is wrong.  Is that pile of backlogged equipment to measure getting any smaller? 

If Amir really thinks correction is needed then allow discussion on ASR as on display here.  Oh no, sorry, that would not work.  Only group think allowed on ASR, so Audiogon is now the soapbox for Amir.  

I will add this :

As Einstein famously said :

@mapman easy to slay when many just act in bad faith.

@prof , your arguments are mainly sound, but one of Feynman’s points you keep referencing, The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, also applied to Amir.

Amir keeps quoting that there is extensive research showing reflection and no treatment other than regular furniture is not only good enough, but that it is superior for home listening. This is not true. There is very little research specific to home listening and room treatment across a range of other variables including what treatments, what speakers, etc. There is some modestly direct research with limited variable adjustment and limited listening panel. There is some anechoic work on specific properties. There is adjacent but not direct research that cannot be directly applied unless the conditions are similar.

As I noted above, that research indicates that specific application can result in specific improvements that can be interpreted as technically superior, even if not as preferred. A bit of cognitive dissonance to insist on electrical purity (absent evidence to prove preference across use cases and type of deviation) while accepting subjectively superior based on what is limited direct research and use cases.

That is furthered with the straw-man argument about mattresses all over the walls and other hyperboles about acoustic treatment as if the only binary options are no treatments and bad treatment. That is further illustration of bias.

I made the point of the Lyngdorf graph and system photos together indicating boundary issues which was casually dismissed though clearly there to someone who has experience with room measurements and the causes. This is something that can be addressed with specific implementations. Not stapling mattresses to the wall.

As concluded by Toole and others (not so much specifically researched), controlled lateral reflections can be better or worse, depending on the person, music, use case, etc. While anecdotal experience is not research, there is strong indications from professionals not prone to hyperbole that dynamic monopole speakers close to the side walls will produce a result that many audiophiles, including those who prefer critical listening, will likely not prefer and that this can be addressed with acoustics.

Even hyperbole about massive amounts of velocity absorbers will not fix deep bass in a small room while correct, is not helpful, as no acoustic professional would even attempt that (nor would most audiophiles) as they are well aware it will not. They will use other products and means to reduce the peaks and valleys of room modes and may or may not include room correction, though professionals would almost as a rule recommend it as it not only corrects level issues but can assist in time (reverb) issues depending on implementation.

There are enough misconceptions in audio based on either no science or limited science. I don’t think we need any new ones.

It was what led to Room EQ eventually becoming standard in every AV processor or Receiver you buy today. 

This is probably hyperbole. It was a great product for its time, but pioneering work at B&W is probably what kick started room correction.

Someone saying that small room acoustic is not good or something to even consider is so ignorant, apart from hearing theory ignorance, that i am speechless.😁

i know nothing... I experimented a bit ...But i am able to read Toole book or some others and think by myself... Toole did not have the time and taste to transform his living room in an acoustic laboratory; it was his work day job, and he must be married, you know what i means ?

But this does not means that passive materials treatment with a good ratio between diffusion/reflection/absorbtion and timing , large band mechanical controls of the room with Helmholtz principles and a bit of frequencies refined electronical equalization are not ALL complementary...They may give so astounding results that no acoustician is an obsessed upgrading fools.. They know how to extract the best sounds from any relatively good gear...

A journalist asked to perhaps the greatest pianist of the century why he does not have a piano in his living room, he answered with humor, no mechanics keep their tools in the living room...I dont think Toole was different... And he know very well the difference between great hall acoustic, and studio acoustic, and living room acoustic and acoustically dedicated small listening room .. Same physical laws , but completely different applications..

They clearly put magico in the rip off snake oil category. I was illustrating to @prof how snake oil isn’t just used with the definition he stated on ASR. That snake oil is at times synonymous with rip off or expensive.

@texbychoice its truly mind boggling. I’m experiencing hive mind not for the first time but with such vigor. I don’t have a dog in this fight. You’re right Amir. I don’t subscribe to any religious view of audio or audio equipment. I use research, data, my ears and instinct. I’m a free thinker and trust audio professionals who make music say in and day out.

I will say it again because it’s worth repeating. Science and religion are two sides of the same outcome. We want to know the unknowable. Science gets it wrong all the time. So does trying to distill the unknown in a church. But what remains important is seeking that out. Learning and remaining interesting in the possibilities. Go look at psychology and how addiction has been treated over the years. They would give opium patients heroin. Doctors did that. Men of science. You have your head in the sand. Being adaptable is important. 

I’ve never seen anyone staple mattresses to the wall 

Being disingenuous to feign incredulity, no intellectual dishonesty to found in this thread. Or, is it really a case of I did not understand what was actually meant, to the outside observer it is the same result.

Understanding is a wonderful thing but unfortunately little of that is happening here. At least with the heavy posters. Most probably just read this thread and roll their eyes because they actually get it and therefore could care less what other people think. 

I am confused about this thread.  Two things that jump out at me are first, that Amir seems to be trying to keep the discussion mostly on-point and related to the science behind his opinions, and second, that a vocal few here would rather jump to name-calling and disparaging remarks than debate the science.  I have never seen a reviewer so called out for every single word they write and every opinion they hold as has happened on this thread. 

The equipment Amir has issues with seems to mostly fall into two categories: either the measurements do not corroborate the manufacturer’s specifications or claims, or the equipment is priced higher than comparable equipment that measures at least as well as the reviewed piece.  That doesn't mean it will sound better to everyone since IMO, measurements alone cannot account for the impression an individual will have about how something sounds.  I can’t understand why there is so much concern and animosity over Amir’s personal opinions about reviewed equipment, since we all have our own opinions.  If you generally don't agree with Amir's opinions, so what, simply don't read ASR.  If his measurements were inaccurate or erroneous, wouldn’t the manufacturers be calling him out?  I just don’t understand what he is doing that creates the level of concern displayed in this thread.  

I agree Mitch, well said.  I’m just glad that measurements will tell us how an audio product will sound.

And there it is, one of the ASR faithful has joined the effort to hijack Audiogon. The day to day content on ASR is exactly why the hypocrisy is being called out.

@texbychoice

Please stop with the cheap attempts to pigeonhole rather than produce intelligent arguments.

I’ve been an Agon forum member years before I ever joined ASR. I’m a member of all types of forums, Steve Hoffman, AVScience forum, What’s Best forum, long time Audio Asylum member, etc.

I’ve been discussing gear here in a "subjective" context for many years but also anyone who knows me knows I have defended the relevance of measurements and science to audio claims as well. Well before I joined ASR. So it’s hardly like I’ve been sent to hijack a thread. (Where of course "hi-jack" in your terms would mean "not letting us produce any b.s. and insults we want, without pushback").

Once again, the cult like mantra appears - Amir is right, everyone else is wrong.

Again...facile insults in place of actually trying to understand what someone has said.

Not once, ever, in this thread or anywhere else have I even implied "Amir is always right, everyone else is wrong." I’ve been explicit that isn’t the case! Did you still miss my critique IN THIS VERY THREAD of Amir’s post in this very which I argued was too dogmatic? I critique Amir on his site, so do plenty of ASR members. Your lazily throwing around labels like "cult" is not helping your credibility. Instead you are feeding in to stereotypes about people on this site - stereotypes about not having strong evidence against Amir’s claims, and so resorting to empty insults instead. Fortunately that doesn’t represent most on this site, but you seem bent on exemplifying this behavior.

Once again, I’m not saying "Amir is always right" but rather, if he’s pointing to empirical/measurable evidence for his claims, it’s best to up your game from insults and assertions to bringing strong evidence against his case.

And I’m just pointing out b.s. characterizations of a forum I know well, when I see them in this thread. For instance:

@texbychoice
ASR routinely labels anything "expensive" as snake oil when there is a cheap ASR endorsed option, regardless of real or perceived performance difference.

somethingsomethingaudio

07-12-2023 at 12:51am
@prof Okay your call. I was responding to what you said. My point remains that people on ASR call products snake oil based on their expensive price. All day long.

Both you guys claimed ASR routinely declares claims/gear "snake oil" simply based on high prices, and that is flatly wrong. I’ve argued that is NOT "typical" of how people apply the term on ASR. As I said, a search for "snake oil" on ASR will demonstrate my claim to be true.

And somethingsomethingaudio searched, found an ASR thread discussing what snake oil means, and completely ignored that it demonstrated he was wrong and I was correct: that vast majority of replies - making it "typical" - put snake oil as some version of a product "not doing what the product claims it can do," not mere "high price." somethingsomethingaudio had to ignore all that and hunt and peck for one example where he *thought* contradicted this. But that he had to choose that out of all the other posts, just shows I was right about what is the "typical" view on ASR. And it didn’t even turn out to support his point, as Amir pointed out.

So, yeah, you guys are spouting some real nonsense about ASR, and you are being called on it. Characterizing this as "hi-jacking" is weak tea when you are caught being lazy or disingenuous in your claims.

Incredible that some people after reading dont understand that everyone welcome his set of measures... At least me...Even more, ASR present  also some informative discussion...

I thank Amir 16 times for that... Who among you thank him 16 times ?

But his ideology about measures, supported by some zealots,  stating on the basis of mainly the small set of linear measures taken by him did not make any sense for PREDICTING AUDIBLE MUISICAL qualities of components then are useful to verify official specs, some engineering design problems and help for synergetic pairings... THATS ALL... The word qualitative "musical" did not have  even meaning for him...

You must trust your ears to pick a component or judging it...You must trust measures to pass over the worst design and coupled it optimally with other components.. Is it a mystery to understand ?

I explained why this is so with basic psycho-acoustic... Amir had not ansd cannot contradict me... he only distorted the 10 articles i suggest, use ad hominem attacks against 2 physicists... And never adress the problem of the link between gear measures and deesign and the hearing theory context...

i attacked his good faith ONLY after his behaviour convince me , he did not understand what is at stake or does not want to...

There is very knowleadgeable people in Audio here and on any audio sites ASR included..

But there is there and here too techno babble ignorant who use technology without understanding his relation to psycho-acoustic basic...

Simple...

Here prof is right...

Stop with the cheap attempts to pigeonhole rather than produce intelligent arguments.

Prof is right here too...

Not once, ever, in this thread or anywhere else have I even implied "Amir is always right, everyone else is wrong."

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool."

                                 And now, the REST of the story:

                                             More in context:

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.  So you have to be very careful about that.  After you’ve not fooled yourself, it’s easy not to fool other scientists.  You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that. "

          Dr Feynman was speaking at Caltech (CIT), in 1974, on the subject of Cargo Cult Science.   No: I didn't make it to that one (not my commencement).

           For anyone actually interested in HIS thoughts and WHY* he felt it necessary, to spend valuable time lecturing a body of future scientists on the topic,                         following are some verbatim excerpts.   

                              Preceding the infamous quote:

"I think the educational and psychological studies I mentioned are examples of what I would like to call Cargo Cult Science.  In the South Seas there is a Cargo Cult of people.  During the war they saw airplanes land with lots of good materials, and they want the same thing to happen now.  So they’ve arranged to make things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head like headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas—he’s the controller—and they wait for the airplanes to land.  They’re doing everything right.  The form is perfect.  It looks exactly the way it looked before.  But it doesn’t work.  No airplanes land.  So I call these things Cargo Cult Science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they’re missing something essential, because the planes don’t land.

 

Now it behooves me, of course, to tell you what they’re missing.  But it would he just about as difficult to explain to the South Sea Islanders how they have to arrange things so that they get some wealth in their system.  It is not something simple like telling them how to improve the shapes of the earphones.  But there is one feature I notice that is generally missing in Cargo Cult Science.  That is the idea that we all hope you have learned in studying science in school—we never explicitly say what this is, but just hope that you catch on by all the examples of scientific investigation.  It is interesting, therefore, to bring it out now and speak of it explicitly.  It’s a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty—a kind of leaning over backwards.  For example, if you’re doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid—not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you’ve eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked—to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.

 

Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them.  You must do the best you can—if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong—to explain it.  If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it.  There is also a more subtle problem.  When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else come out right, in addition.

 

In summary, the idea is to try to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another."

"We’ve learned from experience that the truth will out.  Other experimenters will repeat your experiment and find out whether you were wrong or right.  Nature’s phenomena will agree or they’ll disagree with your theory.  And, although you may gain some temporary fame and excitement, you will not gain a good reputation as a scientist if you haven’t tried to be very careful in this kind of work.  And it’s this type of integrity, this kind of care not to fool yourself, that is missing to a large extent in much of the research in Cargo Cult Science."

                       The sentence after the (more in context) quote, above:

"I would like to add something that’s not essential to the science, but something I kind of believe, which is that you should not fool the layman when you’re talking as a scientist. I’m not trying to tell you what to do about cheating on your wife, or fooling your girlfriend, or something like that, when you’re not trying to be a scientist, but just trying to be an ordinary human being.  We’ll leave those problems up to you and your rabbi.  I’m talking about a specific, extra type of integrity that is not lying, but bending over backwards to show how you’re maybe wrong, that you ought to do when acting as a scientist.  And this is our responsibility as scientists, certainly to other scientists, and I think to laymen."

                                        Further on:

One example of the principle is this: If you’ve made up your mind to test a theory, or you want to explain some idea, you should always decide to publish it whichever way it comes out.  If we only publish results of a certain kind, we can make the argument look good.  We must publish both kinds of result.  For example—let’s take advertising again—suppose some particular cigarette has some particular property, like low nicotine.  It’s published widely by the company that this means it is good for you—they don’t say, for instance, that the tars are a different proportion, or that something else is the matter with the cigarette.  In other words, publication probability depends upon the answer.  That should not be done."

             Betwixt the above quotes and before concluding with this, he gives many examples (skipped, in deference to the limited attention spans, extant):

"So I wish to you—I have no more time, so I have just one wish for you—the good luck to be somewhere where you are free to maintain the kind of integrity I have described, and where you do not feel forced by a need to maintain your position in the organization, or financial support, or so on, to lose your integrity.  May you have that freedom.  May I also give you one last bit of advice: Never say that you’ll give a talk unless you know clearly what you’re going to talk about and more or less what you’re going to say."

                         For any interested- the full the address given, here:

https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm#:~:text=The%20first%20principle%20is%20that,a%20conventional%20way%20after%20that.

             Cargo Cult Science (read the term's source) info (funny stuff), here: 

                       https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult_science

      Dr Feynman's *MOTIVATION, in the first paragraph and what he referenced, under 'Pacific cults of WWII' and 'Postwar Developments'. 

Amir keeps quoting that there is extensive research showing reflection and no treatment other than regular furniture is not only good enough, but that it is superior for home listening. 

We have hardly discussed room acoustics so the claim that I "keep quoting" research is obviously wrong on the face of it.  The other bit is what you are manufacturing on my behalf and then complaining about.  Really, the plot is lost.

We got here because someone claimed I must not have good enough equipment to hear the difference between cables.  So I grab a picture I happen to have of my room and post if that is good enough.  Neither that poster, or another who came to his defense would answer that.  So let's agree that the system was good enough and the claim that the system was the problem was fallacious.

Folks then tried to deflect by claiming that my room must sound like crap.  Why?  Because they saw no acoustic products in there.  I explained that ordinary room furnishings can act as acoustic products and that if you have a speaker with excellent directivity, above modal region, there is not much of an issue.  And that the focus must be to deal with the modal response first and foremost as that is a constant in every room. 

Importantly, I made no statement about superiority of furnishings relative to acoustic products.  I did note that audiophiles tend to not understand room acoustics and slap these things everywhere on their walls and ceilings, and then start to shame others who don't have them.  This is just wrong. This is a complex field and doesn't yield itself to such approach.  

You then chimed in claiming this:

I won’t say it is universal, but it is almost universal that treatment of first reflections in a small rooms is recommended by professionals. Unfortunately, there has not been extensive research on this topic to draw on and what does exist is mainly around speech intelligibility, however, Brett Leonard in his PhD dissertation did some excellent work showing effects of a rather early intense reflections on perception and even the variability of that perception across music genres. Your position does not appear to be based on the fundamental science, available research, or professional recommendation.

I quoted from the very research you put forward that it had nothing to do with listening for enjoyment but that it was a test of recording/mix engineer productivity.  And even there, a reflective sidewall as preferred by majority so quoting that was totally inappropriate and wrong.  Ergo, the claim that "almost universal that treatment of first reflections in a small rooms is recommended by professionals" is also misinformed.

This led to this admission:

Here is the thing, though, referencing this paper was a bit of a intentional trap.

If you don't mind, we rather have a proper discussion here than laying "intentional trap" for readers.

Back to your claim, I have repeatedly said that acoustic products are likely a good choice for a dedicated room.  If you know what you are doing of course they can be used.  What makes room furnishing superior is this:

1. Often they cost nothing.  Acoustic products can get quite expensive.  Yes, you can DIY them to save money but that is miserable work and at any rate, still cost more than decorating the way you like to live and look.

2. Ordinary furnishings look nice and don't create conflict with others living in the same household.  

These are hugely important benefits to audiophiles.  Not necessarily on acoustic front but from point of view of deployment.

3. The path of treating all reflections with absorption will inevitably lead to people slapping absorbers over every surface they can find.  After all, if a little bit is good, a lot is better. Soon the room is deader than the steak on your plate, sounds lifeless and the room ugly as heck.

Bottom like, get speakers that are well designed, do some EQ for low frequencies where acoustic products have little prayer of fixing issues there, put standard furnishing if this is an everyday room, and start enjoying your music.  Do NOT listen to people claiming expertise based on stuff they have read online.  And certainly don't let them shame you into throwing blankets on the wall or else your system sounds like "crap."  They don't know what they are saying.

@rodman99999 

I appreciate your posting that extended Feynman dialogue to make my point.  Cheers.

Great post! thanks

@prof-

                                                  NOT AT ALL your, "point"!

                          Given your lack of comprehension: NO SURPRISE, either.

                                   Your beliefs precisely define the 'Cargo Cult'.

One thing about "science" in these discussions.  Much of what we want to convey has nothing to do with "science."  Ordinary engineering knowledge and methods are more than adequate to prove or disprove marketing claims or fidelity.  Equipment is said to have darker background and hence, lower noise floor.  Well, we can trivially measure that and we do that day in and day out at ASR.  We do not need to invoke "science" in that.

When we do use science, it is not in the process of creating more of it.  Example: more than four decades of scientific research shows that speakers that are most preferred are the ones with on axis and smooth off-axis (not flat).  So we measure those parameters and get to use science to predict what sounds good to us.

Sadly, the word science is being used as a weapon in these discussions.  Folks claim that "science says it doesn't know everything" so we should pretend we know nothing about how a piece of wire works.  Well, no, again, we are not attempting to create science.  Simple testing shows whether said wire does something good, nothing, or makes things worse.  Science doesn't get involved or invoked in that. 

Much of what audiophiles worry about is subject of any scientific research.  Why?  Because such research is not deemed necessary.  We know the answers.  We don't need to keep looking for an alternative.

@kevn 

@amir_asr 

Amir, what of the fact that all along, you have only been measuring just the electrical half of electromagnetism. Can you explain the loss of logic in basing your entire belief system on that?

Huh?  What do you call speaker and headphone testing? Devoid of magnetism?  How do they make sound then (putting aside electrostatics and such).

Power supplies in audio gear use transformers so their magnetic properties are also encapsulated in the overall performance of a device.

The ending of that sentence is key: don't try to get ahead of the train.  As an audiophile, your only concern should be what comes out of your audio gear.  Not how some physical theory acts on the design of said equipment.  You don't listen to that phenomenon. 

This is cargo cult:

This is not:

The basis of a debate is good faith,,,

Good faith means you are able to repeat the opposite side arguments as they stated it...No ad hominem attacks and no caricature...

Here a caricature with an appeal to an affective reaction instead of a rational thinking...

Bottom like, get speakers that are well designed, do some EQ for low frequencies where acoustic products have little prayer of fixing issues there, put standard furnishing if this is an everyday room, and start enjoying your music.

What about Helmholtz resonators for taming the bass ?

What is a well designed speakers ? Is Tannoy dual concentric bad design ? They sound way less good in my living room than my Mission Cyrus in a better acoustic environment.. Guess why ?

Do NOT listen to people claiming expertise based on stuff they have read online.

Do you know that every scholars research is available on the internet ?

Even doctorate thesis in acoustic ?

is this observation include ASR or just audiogon ?

And certainly don’t let them shame you into throwing blankets on the wall or else your system sounds like "crap." They don’t know what they are saying.

You are right here... I will only add, dont let them shame you because you use your ears not only measures and trust your ears to experiment and pick you gear... Because those techno babble measuring zealots they dont know that a set of measures describe SOME ASPECTS ONLY OF the design and cannot alone predict "musical qualities" ...As demonstrated  Amir , they dont even know what hearing theory science is and why a debate exist there and what is at stake..

And for those who use technology to DEBUNK not to design  , so useful it can be, the adjective "musical quality" which can made sense for a craftmanship designer of amplifier using psycho-acoustic concepts about distortion and the non linear working of the ears, this adjective suddenly  is a word devoid of simple numbers meanings on their limited set of dials..Guess why ?

This is cargo cult,

Now he's just trolling. 

All the best,
Nonoise

What is a well designed speakers ? Is Tannoy dual concentric bad design ?

Maybe, maybe not.  You can't go by a brand name.  You must measure it as a first step.  I reviewed the Tannoy Revolution XT 6. 

You pay $1,200 and get this response:

Fortunately subjectively is not as bad as it seems (due to bandwidth of our auditory filters).  Still, there is no reason to put up with such a response (and distortion) when there are plenty of superior choices at those price points.

This was my conclusion:

Conclusions
The Tannoy Revolution XT 6 brings distinct looks to a crowded market which I liked. Objectively though, the coaxial design brought with it a choppy and uneven frequency response which research and my experience shows to not be good. Fortunately the audible effect is not severe. What is severe is level of measured distortion. This distortion in my opinion is audible and serves to produce a distorted sound. Fortunately careful EQ seems to deal with them but then wind up with so many patches to get the speaker to sound right. The designer should have done this, not us.

So overall, I can't recommend the Tannoy XT 6.

Bottom line, don't run with concepts such as coaxial.  Insist on measurements to show efficacy.

@nonoise

Amir made a point that audiophiles driven to do things like that cable lifter seem more indicative of cult-like thinking than those that appeal to more objective evidence - offering data for critical scrutiny and debate by others -  such as he posted.

You could rebut his point, but of course using the word "trolling" is always easier, isn’t it?