It’s easy to make snide remarks like “yes- I do the opposite of what he says.” And in some respects I agree, but if you do that, this is just going to be taken down. So I’m asking a serious question. Has ASR actually changed your opinion on anything? For me, I would say 2 things. I am a conservatory-trained musician and I do trust my ears. But ASR has reminded me to double check my opinions on a piece of gear to make sure I’m not imagining improvements. Not to get into double blind testing, but just to keep in mind that the brain can be fooled and make doubly sure that I’m hearing what I think I’m hearing. The second is power conditioning. I went from an expensive box back to my wiremold and I really don’t think I can hear a difference. I think that now that I understand the engineering behind AC use in an audio component, I am not convinced that power conditioning affects the component output. I think.
So please resist the urge to pile on. I think this could be a worthwhile discussion if that’s possible anymore. I hope it is.
Your analogy has a very relative level of validity, but at the end WINE TASTING is not acoustic... A piece of gear well designed by electrical measures is not wine...No more than the measures of piece of gear replace the ears/brain working metaphorically described as "tasting" ...
Why ?
Taste more than touch or more than hearing or seeing is related to our INDIVIDUAL UNIQUE BIO CHEMISTRY AND METABOLISM...Taste is subjective completely... Wine taster are trained to identify wine component and describe them ( soil composition and chemistry of the plant ) not to suppress our individual preferences in wine born from our own personal metabolism chemistry...
Because we can use our ears/brain to see by echolocation if we become blind...If hearing was intimate and individualized as taste we will not be able to trust it OBJECTIVELY... And we will not be able to train the new blind objectively in a course designed to do it WITHOUT ERRORS ... WE SEE WITH OUR EARS...
Also the acoustic conditions in a room are OBJECTIVE factors we can control to please or displease OBJECTIVELY any musician trained to recognize accurate timbre experience..
Also our survival as species trained us to RECOGNIZE objective speech sound in all condition in an optimal way... Why ? because our survival can depend on reflex based on ONE WORD COMMAND...This recognition obey objective working of the brain in objective natural condition...
Also acoustic physical concepts can be measured, and each qualitative attribute of sounds can be studied objectively and can be described objectively even when they are SUBJECTIVELY evaluated in psycho-acoustic ...Psycho-acoustic is based on subject-object optimal correlation...
Hi Chayro,
Sensory Evaluation classes in the Wine Industry teach us that the olfactory sense of smell is interpreted; the only one of our senses that is not ’technically’ hard-wired.
Some humans can be ’trained’ to distinguish up to 1,000 different smells.
Each humans mouth, nose etc. are different. For example when we would place and old 3-ring binder life-saver on our tongues and place a small drop of blue dye in the middle hole we could count the taste buds in the center of the life-saver-shaped hole. Those who had lots of little taste buds were ’super tasters’ and medium amounts ’tasters’ and those with few big blotchy ones were called ’non-tasters’. Each of them totally valid for the person whose tongue we were looking at.
We tried different taste sensation like bitterness from caffeine, or sweetness from sugar. Each taste was sensed from a different area of our mouth.
The lesson we learned was we are all physiologically different. What tastes good to you may not taste good to me; so make sure you put at least 3-different wines on the table to try and please everyone!
You can see where this is going, if you like a wine reviewers taste then you will like his wines, no matter how he measures his taste in the wine, you both have a similar set of physiological taste buds and olfactory sensory apparatus.
So it’s not too hard to understand that audio senses are also interpreted to some degree based on lots of physical inputs and from most importantly life experiences. We could never understand why the teachers promoted the old school European wines over the fruit forward California ones, until we had enough tastes under our belts to gain a base-line of understanding from which our sensory evaluation could take place.
Thus no matter how many types of audio equipment one may listen to or measure, if you don’t have the same taste in sound as the reviewer then it matters not because like it or not sound is an interpreted experience.
Trust me we put super expensive, super highly revered wines next to those that were not, and it was always the same thing, 30% liked, 30% did not like, %40 didn’t care that much.
If you put 30 people in a sound testing environment, good math and statistics will tell you the same spread will recur over and over, cost is irrelevant, and personal choice is all that matters.
So, find a reviewer that has your taste in sound and follow them.
So what we have is people standing up for individual choice and saying I don’t care about measurements, I’ll do it my way. Ok fine! That’s how it should be.
But then you have a guy who tries to scientifically measure things and that’s his way. He also has a website to publish the info and many choose to value that because they value science.
But now the guy who chooses science is chastised for doing it his way He can do more than most anyone in this area and collect technical data that can help people make decisions but the “libertarians” can’t handle THAT guy deciding for himself how to do things because they don’t like the way he does things. His different view especially if based on science makes him the enemy
This is a common phenomena that we witness everyday on the internet, talk shows etc. people expect the right for themselves to be free and do it their way but not the people they disagree with. That’s being a hypocrite with a capital H .
The fact is many who want freedom for themselves can’t handle when others who are different want the same freedom. They think they are right and other guy wrong so he becomes the enemy and must be stopped.
Take note. Hypocritical libertarians vilifying others with different values are everywhere. Politicians know this and take full advantage.
Just saying. Just having different values on how to value hifi gear is enough to get people triggered
Yes Amir believes in his way and tries to convince others he is right. But I don’t see any name calling, back handed personal insults or other personal slurs coming from him . Yes he thinks he is right and tries to validate his stance. Nothing wrong with that . You can also argue an eye for an eye, but the personal attacks appear to be one way. The unhappy libertarians attack armed with slurs, insults and no regard for misinformation.
It’s so sad and petty. Grow up people. We can all do better. Maybe be a true libertarian who value the freedom of all decent hard working people, not just themselves. Narcissism seems to come into play here and that is always bad for everyone else in the end.
Do you really “Know Your Enemy”? When the enemy is science we have a big big problem.
Mapman you dont seems to realize that anybody with a brain can only welcome the measures set Amir gave and say thanks... No problem here...Because i have a brain i thank Amir ...For the 17th time...
But you seems to forget that Amir dont present them as only useful measures faisification and verification but as AUDIBLE TRUTH and more than that the ONLY AUDIBLE TRUTH , anything else being subjective illusions with no value ...
Thats the problem... A falsehood submitted as truth to promote an ideology and a site..
Just saying ...
So what we have is people standing up for individual choice and saying I don’t care about measurements, I’ll do it my way. Ok fine! That’s how it should be.
But then you have a guy who tries to scientifically measure things and that’s his way. He also has a website to publish the info and many choose to value that because they value metrics.
But now the guy who chooses metrics is chastised for doing it his way He can do more than most anyone in this area and collect technical data that can help people make decisions but the “libertarians” can’t handle THAT guy deciding for himself how to do things because they don’t like the way he does things. They’d like him to be silenced
This is a common phenomena that we witness everyday on the internet, talk shows etc. people want the right for themselves to be free and do it their way but not the people they disagree with. That’s being a hypocrite with a capital H .
The fact is many who want freedom for themselves can’t handle when others who are different want the same freedom. They think they are right and other guy wrong so he should be stopped.
Take note. Hypocritical libertarians are everywhere. Politicians know this and take full advantage.
Again, I’m thankful to rodman99999 for providing the longer quotes from Feynman
which serve so well to support the point I’d been making (as well as Amir).
Let’s take this section:
FEYNMAN: 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.
I think a nice example of how this can work is the infamous Opera Experiment that purported to detect faster-than-light neutrinos:
The team of physicists upon finding the anomoly in their results knew how momentous it would be, and so they checked and double checked their findilngs looking for any way things could have gone wrong. They re-ran the experiment, getting the same results, and when months of doing everything they could to find errors was finished, the announced the results. However, being good scientists they understood the extraordinary nature of the results and presented it to other scientists saying basically "Look, we got these unexpected results. We’ve done everything we can to trace possible biases, influences or technical issues in our experiment...but we are presenting the results so you can double check our work, and hopefully replicate the results."
Various possible flaws were suggested, and then the Opera scientists later...just as Feynman would council - reported some possible flaws in their experiment they’d discovered. Further investigation confirmed the flaws and that combined with others failing to replicate the results, dis-confirmed the initial "discovery."
Just as science should work - for either disconfirmation or confirmation.
Along those lines, in a much more modest level, I’ve tried to hew to these general principles when I’ve wanted to be more sure or rigorous about my conclusions.
For example I was curious about my Benchmark SS preamp I’d just bought vs my CJ tube preamp, in which the sonic differences seemed pretty obvious. Well...most here would say "of course they’d be obvious."
However, having done a variety of blind testing over the years - AC cables, video cables, DACs/CDPs, music servers - I’m familiar with how "obvious" sonic differences can feel under the influence of sighted bias - e.g., when you know what it is you are listening to. I’ve had "obvious" sonic differences vanish when I wasn’t allowed to know which was which. It’s very educational.
It was entirely possible that I could be perceiving a sonic difference because of my perception being swayed by those wonderful "warm, glowing tubes...of course it’s going to sound different!"
So, again, as Feynman would advise: the first rule is not to fool yourself as you are the easiest person to fool. And since I know sighted bias is a big variable, I attempted a blind test to reduce the possibility of "fooling myself." I took various other steps to reduce "fooling myself" - ensuring there wasn’t a way I could tell which preamp was being switched to, ensuring the switching was randomized, trying to ensure the levels were matched so as to account for loudness bias, etc.
When I did my best...once again in concert with what Feynman would advise...I presented the results for other people to critique:
As Feynman advised, I made sure to add as much detail about my method as I could, INCLUDING areas where I thought flaws could arise. And then I answered every question, I could about my method, took some suggestions to double check certain aspects and looked at how others assessed the results.
It wasn’t a scientific-level of rigor, but I think it was in the spirit of the scientific mindset/approach in the sense of all the above.
So I think I get fairly close to walking-the-walk in such instances with some of my own testing.
I wonder if rodman or others can show any of their audio tests havea similar level of steps put in place to "not fool yourself" as well as presenting the results looking for others to critique?
This, btw, is also generally what Amir does. He presents his results with plenty of detail about his METHOD and RESULTS so there is plenty of information given on which people can critique the method or results. It's not just "I put this in my system and I heard X, trust me!" It's "here, YOU can look for yourself at my DATA to see if I'm wrong." He presents it to the more general public on his youtube channel, and in the ASR forum in which he knows there are plenty of technically informed people who can help catch problems. And this is what goes on at ASR all the time.
Yeah @amir_asr your posted results for the listening test are meaningless and unverifiable. No way to know you did that unless it was proctored like @soundfield says
There is a proctor: it is called a computer. In comparing files, a computer program randomizes trials, keeps the results and summarizes and reports them at the end.
As to verification, I showed you video where I explain precisely how I passed the test and how you too -- assuming you have critical listening abilities -- can do the same.
Furthermore, newer versions of the ABX comparator has a cryptographic hash which makes it impossible to doctor the results:
You run the above result against a signature check program and it will give thumbs up/down as to whether the results are hand modified.
So no, you have many ways to build confidence on such results and I have given you reasons above.
Ultimately though, if we are going to doubt each other's ethics, then we can't go anywhere. I could accuse you of being AJ for example. You could jump up and down 1000 times and I can still say you are him. What are you going to do then? Accept that you could be AJ?
If these results can be gamed so easily, why don't you, AJ or whoever show us that? If you can't, then you don't know how they can be games and therefore, all you have is FUD, not facts.
Ok, so you confirm those are indeed signal analyzers, Oscilloscopes etc that could theoretically real time analyze and identify signals, visibly. Cool.
What theory? Two files that are presented as 24 bit/96 kHz while in reality one has a true dynamic range of 16 bits, can NOT be analyzed with any tool I have. A smart signal processing person made sure of that.
BTW, a digital scope has at best 12 bits of resolution (most are 8 bits). Yet you think that can be used to detect high-res music at 24 bits vs 16 bit audio?
So no, you don't get to waive your hands and claim this and that. Learn the real theory, and the capabilities of the measurement devices, and then we can at least have a conversation.
Bottom line: no analyzer of any sort was used in any of my testing. You don't have any evidence to the contrary other than your incredulity that someone like me could pass such tests. Well, tough. I did pass them and I explain the science and signal processing of each.
How about the techno cultist bias equatiing a set of electrical measures designed to verify the well behaviour of circuits and components as the ONLY VALID PREDICTION about the STATUS and VALUE of audible qualities as described in psycho-acoustic experiments and in ecological hearing theories as more than just Fourier maps made of linearly related abstract concepts as frequencies, amplitude, phase and duration ? All these abstract mathematical factors are not able alone to explain and describe why and how the brain work in his time dependant domain ( rise and decay not decay and then rise ) and with his non linear QUALITATIVE and evaluating perception ?
No bias here ?
Are you able to read an article ?
Read Magnasco and Oppenheim experiment and explain the meaning , we will se if you understand it...
It is not always our bias who fool us, it is some adopted bias we borrow from someone else... by the way we cannot suppress ALL of our biases... We can only became conscious of some of them... our personal history is the history of our biases for the best or for the worst.... You read Feynman as if when he spoke he was a schoolboy thinking only about a blind test ... Biases are not all bad, we must train our mind and perception with the right set of biases... Biases can be acquired... Acoustician for example and musician are trained "golden ears"...
Again, I’m thankful to rodman99999 for providing the longer quotes from Feynman
which serve so well to support the point I’d been making (as well as Amir).
Let’s take this section:
FEYNMAN: 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.
I think a nice example of how this can work is the infamous Opera Experiment that purported to detect faster-than-light neutrinos:
The team of physicists upon finding the anomoly in their results knew how momentous it would be, and so they checked and double checked their findilngs looking for any way things could have gone wrong. They re-ran the experiment, getting the same results, and when months of doing everything they could to find errors was finished, the announced the results. However, being good scientists they understood the extraordinary nature of the results and presented it to other scientists saying basically "Look, we got these unexpected results. We’ve done everything we can to trace possible biases, influences or technical issues in our experiment...but we are presenting the results so you can double check our work, and hopefully replicate the results."
Various possible flaws were suggested, and then the Opera scientists later...just as Feynman would council - reported some possible flaws in their experiment they’d discovered. Further investigation confirmed the flaws and that combined with others failing to replicate the results, dis-confirmed the initial "discovery."
Just as science should work - for either disconfirmation or confirmation.
Along those lines, in a much more modest level, I’ve tried to hew to these general principles when I’ve wanted to be more sure or rigorous about my conclusions.
For example I was curious about my Benchmark SS preamp I’d just bought vs my CJ tube preamp, in which the sonic differences seemed pretty obvious. Well...most here would say "of course they’d be obvious."
However, having done a variety of blind testing over the years - AC cables, video cables, DACs/CDPs, music servers - I’m familiar with how "obvious" sonic differences can feel under the influence of sighted bias - e.g., when you know what it is you are listening to. I’ve had "obvious" sonic differences vanish when I wasn’t allowed to know which was which. It’s very educational.
It was entirely possible that I could be perceiving a sonic difference because of my perception being swayed by those wonderful "warm, glowing tubes...of course it’s going to sound different!"
So, again, as Feynman would advise: the first rule is not to fool yourself as you are the easiest person to fool. And since I know sighted bias is a big variable, I attempted a blind test to reduce the possibility of "fooling myself." I took various other steps to reduce "fooling myself" - ensuring there wasn’t a way I could tell which preamp was being switched to, ensuring the switching was randomized, trying to ensure the levels were matched so as to account for loudness bias, etc.
When I did my best...once again in concert with what Feynman would advise...I presented the results for other people to critique:
As Feynman advised, I made sure to add as much detail about my method as I could, INCLUDING areas where I thought flaws could arise. And then I answered every question, I could about my method, took some suggestions to double check certain aspects and looked at how others assessed the results.
It wasn’t a scientific-level of rigor, but I think it was in the spirit of the scientific mindset/approach in the sense of all the above.
So I think I get fairly close to walking-the-walk in such instances with some of my own testing.
I wonder if rodman or others can show any of their audio tests havea similar level of steps put in place to "not fool yourself" as well as presenting the results looking for others to critique?
This, btw, is also generally what Amir does. He presents his results with plenty of detail about his METHOD and RESULTS so there is plenty of information given on which people can critique the method or results. It’s not just "I put this in my system and I heard X, trust me!" It’s "here, YOU can look for yourself at my DATA to see if I’m wrong." He presents it to the more general public on his youtube channel, and in the ASR forum in which he knows there are plenty of technically informed people who can help catch problems. And this is what goes on at ASR all the time.
It is comical to see Amir arguing about acuity test,... And bragging about it...
Acuity is useless to perceive a bird song if you dont have the concept of bird nor the concept of song... You will perceive noise not a "bird song"...
i think Amir never had a course in philosophy... Even elementary... It is a pity... Because science without philosophical basic make no sense at all...
Anything perceived by the ears/brain must be recognized, it is why acoustician and musician train their ears/brain to acquire the right set of BIASES... Acuity as sensitivity to hertz scale and decibels scale alone cannot replace TRAINING...Without this training it is not surprizing that someone in love with electrical tools claim that electrical measures are the only valid predictive way to assess audio hearing qualities...
About this matterc the two most influential philosopher of the last century are Merleau_Ponty, and the mathematician turned philosopher Husserl... But i know for sure that someone unable to read a simple paper as the paper of Magnasco and Oppenheim will not be able to read Husserl... it is not like reading cartoons or cartesian graphs or electrical graphs at all ...
Every body has a brain. Some are unfortunate and may have medical conditions. That”s not their fault. Others have a brain and value learning. Others do not. One’s values help determine how and what is learned. Amir is laser tuned on scientific measurements. You on philosophy, embedding and now psycho acoustics and how that affects what one hears. It’s all good. The point is you and Amir both WANT to learn and you each have your way. Good. Yay! Bravo! Do your thing!
The problem is some have perfectly good brains but have been conditioned to devalue learning including in science and other fields . All the while reaping the benefits of what other smart people learned and they didn’t . Think about it! Learning is a core value in some cultures In others increasingly learning is the enemy! We all are human and have our biases and limitations. Some learn to learn and others fight it tooth and nail and want to rely on “instincts” only. I respect that As long as one is not trying to obstruct others from doing their thing their way however that may add value.
You read Feynman as if when he spoke he was a schoolboy thinking only about a blind test ...
No. If you are going to comment on a "too long post" maybe read it first. Did you even see what I wrote about how the Opera experiment scenario exemplified much of Feynman’s advice? It's much richer than just "blind experiment."
I’m not running experiments on fundamental physics. But as I said, when it comes to my own tests and I want to be more cautious, I adopt methods that align with Feynman’s cautions about "fooling yourself" (and like I showed, presenting my method and data to others for critique).
You either can’t admit how this fits well with Feynman’s words...or you just don’t understand Feynman (or the scientific method).
You keep talking about big theories, and how some biases are bad some good, but show NO instances where you have taken Feynman’s advice in terms of your method - that is the steps you took in your steps to ensure you weren’t fooling yourself.
@amir_asrYes I am AJ. How did you know? I can prove I am not him. You can’t prove that you didnt run the audio externally through whatever listening device you used through another analyzer. There is no way to verify this, unless someone was watching you do it. You absolutely could cheat that test. Nothing is monitoring the output sound.
The best way to fool ourself is when we want TO WIN A POINT in a discussion or in an experiment AT ALL COST..
Why ? because the discussion or the experiment could be based on an entire set of biases or hypothesis that are false... Then the experiment protocol can even be perfect and without any defect in his protocol and can even give more truthful and proven results reinforcing the faulty biases or hypothesis or the discussed point...
It is classical case with the faulty hypothesis of the Ptolemaic epicycles which were more predictively precise than Copernic own computation on the basis of his theory at the times...
Then here you have, epicycles, a perfect clear concept, which is computable and useful for computations, perfect experiment, perfect protocol of observation validated by more and more precise measure from observation and to go on with new observations, simple we add new epicycles to represent exactly and perfectly the more precise observations.. ... A winner game no ? 😊
But a completely false hypothesis about the center of the solar system... With his less well measured results it is Copernic who will win , time will defeat the exact epicycles by Ockham razor and improving application to measures and simplifying them making now more easy the observation with the Copernician hypothesis..
Do you catch why Feyman think as i described not as you simplify it grossly for your needs and to win an argument in this discussion ? You must read philosophy of science, if you dont you will even be able to set experimental protocol right but you risk to go more deeply in a false PARADIGM ( it is easy to search for many examples in the medical field and in psycho-acoustic history) ... Read not only Popper about falsification , read Kuhn about paradigm change and better, read Feyerabend book "AGAINST METHOD " and his RADICAL discussion with Imre Lakatos..
This is the same with Amir Ptolemaic measuring delusion imposed as the only basis for ascribing hearing qualitites to an audio system...He confirm his own bias or hypothesis more and more with electrical new and better measures which are not EVEN WRONG...
It is not the electrical measures- Earth but the Ears/brain psycho-acoustic- SUN the center of the acoustic- solar system... Those using electrical measures are BESIDE the essential psycho-acoustic point, and they cannot describe what is "listening" and,
what do we listen to when listening to a sound and how ?
Electrical Fourier analysis is not PSYCHO ACOUSTIC science...Only a part of it...
No. If you are going to comment on a "too long post" maybe read it first. Did you even see what I wrote about how the Opera experiment scenario exemplified much of Feynman’s advice? It’s much richer than just "blind experiment."
I’m not running experiments on fundamental physics. But as I said, when it comes to my own tests and I want to be more cautious, I adopt methods that align with Feynman’s cautions about "fooling yourself" (and like I showed, presenting my method and data to others for critique).
You either can’t admit how this fits well with Feynman’s words...or you just don’t understand Feynman (or the scientific method).
You keep talking about big theories, and how some biases are bad some good, but show NO instances where you have taken Feynman’s advice in terms of your method - that is the steps you took in your steps to ensure you weren’t fooling yourself.
mapman your reasonning is based on a sophism here...
Amir is not SCIENCE incarnated...Discussing with him as i did with rigorous argument from hearing theories or from acoutic is not being against science...And it is not being against Amir...It is being against an erroneous application of electrical measure in psycho-acoustic..
You dont realize that electrical measures are not the only scientific facts here?
My point is many espouse personal freedom but only for themselves.
Also it’s not a good thing when science becomes the enemy.
@mahgister I didn’t say you were anti science. Why did you infer that?
Also of course I know here is more to it than a handful of electrical metrics.
I am saying that it’s not a competition with a winner and a loser. You can do things your way and Amir his and others will each judge the value of the science presented. That’s how science works.
@amir_asrif you were paying attention you would have seen that I said both you and @soundfieldwere acting like children and I would not buy speakers where pictures arent available as arent measurements. Why would I talk against my own products? You really need to get your head out of...the sand
I just show you in my post above with Copernic/Ptolemaus how we can devise perfectly error free observation /measurement protocol without any errors in it and being right all the time but with a false hypothesis all along for millenia ptolemaus astronomy goes way before Copernic and improved with the time passing a lot not only in spite but because of his faulty paradigm .. it is why experiments and observations are not enough to define science... moral conduct and training of the thought process ( not only mere logical reasonning here but more ) as training of the conscious attention is more important...
You keep talking about big theories, and how some biases are bad some good, but show NO instances where you have taken Feynman’s advice in terms of your method - that is the steps you took in your steps to ensure you weren’t fooling yourself.
The only way you can assure you will not fool yourself , is not EXACT PERFECT experimental protocol with the illusory goal of eliminating ALL your biases.. This is impossible...
The biases created by the seeing of the sun turning around us is not false... This bias is confirmed each day...
The only way to not fool ourself is to cherish truth over our own life...Cherish truth over our paradigm... cherish truth over our tools... And even cherish truth over our scientific method... truth is the ultimate Ockam razor... Truth is one eternally...
There is no recipe to cherish truth... It can be learned by the moral and ethical conduct of the process of thinking... Plato teach it as such... This is why Christ teachings, Buddha, Lao tse, are so deep and why geometry and number theory are exercise in truth thinking and contemplation ...
My job was teaching reading and MOTIVATING reading among students not at an elementary level but reading analysis between fields...litterary, poetic or scientific or philosophic...
What is language ? in the grammar of any language there is a GEOMETRY of the thinking process which is the basis of the scientific process itself... Linguistic is one of the most astounding science ever... I studied with a linguistic genius alas! not translated in english much...Nothing is really random in language... language is so deep with meanings... i even cannot imagine how human can invent it... We litterally speak with a tool more deep than we can fathom... i cannot describe why here... They will kill my long post... 😊
In language there is two completely INTERTWINNED levels : poetic and prosaic... Guess where is truth in language ?
It is in our heart and in our way to relate the poetic and prosaic mode of speech TOGETHER in a conscious ethical way ...
Truth is the brother of love...They come from the Source...
it is the reason why i advised my students to study geometry or number theory more than philosophers only ( prosaic mode of speech) and read more mystics ( poetic mode of speech ) more than theologian...
observation must be trained... Faraday set of experiments or Goethe description of plants and mammals are very powerful for training...One of the most stunning book on earth describe mammals... Reading it we fall off from our chair, because we realized that we were able to identify a lion by reflex looking at it but we realized we had never SEE a lion... because our bias of recognition of the object lion fooled us completely... We miss all evident talking signs of the lion form and metabolism by looking at the lion image without seeing ever a real lion through the image...Any mammals form tell a story through all details of the form... as we must learn how to listen, we must learn how to see... Even grown adults dont know how to see... but oftem more blind people know how to see, why ? because they know that what we see is the ECHO of the signals we throw at the object like a bat and a dolphin... If we emit truth we will perceive truth...
in all that seeing, hearing etc , there is no simple method, only the thirst for truth and contemplation...
By the way acoustic phenomena are also as music a contemplative objects in time and very deep astounding as music or painting are ...
Where amir presents measurements clinically and without bias, well and good.
a service.
Where amir starts going on about how, explicitly or through snide comments, someone is a rube, a plebe, an unsophisticated troglodyte if they don’t agree with his value judgements and they actually like, and forfend(!), purchase something that does not “measure up” per amir, is where he becomes offensive.
He becomes tedious, with copy/pasted thousand word or line replies and 15 multicolored charts and graphs. Leave those on your own site and just provide an invite to view them there.
If humans only did or liked, what was “measurably” good for them, via social pressure, government diktat, or rule of technocrat, what a sad, flat experience life would be.
Make your measurements amir, but leave out the “value judgments” of and, often less than subtle, insults about people who disregard your “suggestions” to purchase, or not, a piece of equipment. Save that crap for your own site. Please. If I ever want to be exposed to that kind of abusive snobishness, I will be sure to visit.
I am here in a thread specifically addressing who and what we are at ASR. Lots of misinformation is posted by members that are easily refuted. So I refute. :)
If I ever want to be exposed to that kind of abusive snobishness, I will be sure to visit.
I tolerate an inordinate amount of abusive snobbishness in this thread. Doesn't bother me none as long as we get to the truth of who and what we are at ASR.
Where amir presents measurements clinically and without bias, well and good.
a service.
That’s what my reviews are like on ASR. They are heavy on data and few words in between translating what the data says. I used to not say anything about recommending or not recommending a device but members strongly asked for that so I put it in there. But I also have a poll for members to vote to agree or disagree.
Further, every review is a discussion thread allowing people to again, agree or disagree, express their likes and dislikes (product or my review), and importantly add a lot of knowledge of information on their own.
How that can be "abusive" when it is exactly what you are asking, is a mystery to be solved.
Anyhow in conclusion, no I don’t think Amir has changed my mind about anything. I have found useful information on his site that will help my decision making when buying though and look forward to what all he might review in the future. He is a reviewing machine for sure. The metrics say he produces more reviews faster than most anyone else and I respect that as long as the quality does not take a back seat..
About this matterc the two most influential philosopher of the last century are Merleau_Ponty, and the mathematician turned philosopher Husserl...
Let me ask you to ponder this: as something achieves speed of light, time for it stops relative to us who are stationary (Einstein's theory of special relativity). In that regard, a photon of light that has been traveling for billions of years since the big bang, gets to our eyes in an instant, as far as the consciousness of the photons is concerned. At one moment it is at big bang and at the very same moment, it hits your eyes through a telescope! Do you understand the ramifications of this for fidelity of audio?
Clearly it does bother you. You are still here. LAUGH OUT LOUD. You have explained everything you ever could about what your website does, and revealed everything it doesnt do through your snobbery. The fact that you cant see your elitism shows you have a blindspot the size of Texas. You just want the last word which you don't seem to be getting.
Here is a "review" from ASR. Amir doesn't even share whether he would recommend it. Just says vote with your eyes.
A company sends you a $20,000 test pair and you can't even be bothered to listen.
"As I noted, due to lack of time, I do not have listening impressions for you." How the @#!$ do you evaluate a speaker without that? I would love to see a car review without driving it. Astonishing.
"As I noted, due to lack of time, I do not have listening impressions for you." How the @#!$ do you evaluate a speaker without that? I would love to see a car review without driving it. Astonishing.
There was no proctor available to vouch for authenticity of my subjective listening tests. It was during the time of Covid and proctors just didn't want to make home visits. Meanwhile, we have this:
Do you need help understanding this AJ? Is it befitting of a $20,000 speaker?
@amir_asrI am not AJ. You’re so rude and people come to your defense. Nice of you to be so condescending and sarcastic. That is your science at work? I post on ASR regularly.
Explain to me how a review for a loudspeaker does not entail listening to it. Joke.
Doesnt bother you but you continue to unravel and let this whole conversation frustrate you more and more.
Explain to me how a review for a loudspeaker does not entail listening to it. Joke.
It has been explained. Repeatedly. I have even post a video I have done on it.
Someone’s subjective testing of a single speaker has little to no value. That you seek is useless.
The purpose of my listening tests is to determine audibility of flaws seen in measurements, not something onto themselves. Here, the flaws of the speaker are quite apparent. With the speaker being quite large and heavy, I made an exception to my general stance of listening and EQing it and letting the membership build a consensus.
That you ignore some 300 speaker reviews with listening tests and pick this one to complain about shows anything but good intentions. Move on.
Now being unable to answer my point about the IMPOSSIBILITY and UNSCIENTIFIC attitude which consist as you did and trying to convince others that a small linear set of electrical measures from Fourier Maps are the only OBJECTIVE way to qualify audio audible impressions QUALITIES, because if not , they are anyway "illusions" or artefacts we must eliminated by blind test, this techno babble ideology has nothing to do with psycho-acoustic as demonstrated CLEARLY not only by the results of Oppenheim and Magnasco but by the way they constructed their experimental protocol to demonstrate the way the ears/brain do not compute mere Fourier maps but perceived REAL QUALITATVE INFORMATION FROM THE REAL NATURAL ENVIRONMENT in his time dependant domain and extract this information essential for his survival in a non linear way...
What is your answer and argument AGAINST this fact ?
Instead treating me like a deluded idiot you set me a childish trap with a paradox in quantum theory...
If i explain to you the solution , you will not be able to UNDERSTAND it...
I will also treat you as you treat me, i know how to liquidated your paradox , and i will suggest to you first TWO solutions at this paradox, one in non commutative geometry by Alain Connes about TIME in this video : "the shape of music."...and i will briefly resume it :"The thermal time hypothesis has been put forward as a possible solution to this problem by Carlo Rovelli and Alain Connes, both in classical and quantum theory. It postulates that physical time flow is not an a priori given fundamental property of the theory, but is a macroscopic feature of thermodynamical origin." For clarity i will add this "The thermal time hypothesis predicts that the ratio of the observer's proper time to his statistical time – the time flow that emerges from Connes and Rovelli's ideas – is the temperature he measures around him. It so happens that every event horizon has an associated temperature."
there exist another solution which do not contradict this one but complement it but you are not able to understand it sorry ... it is in the Book by the physicist Anirban Bandyopadhyay; Nanobrain or how to make an artificial brain with time crystals...
Now instead of playing with me as an idiot ANSWER WHY MY OBJECTION TO YOUR REDUCTION OF AUDIBLE QUALITIES TO ELECTRICAL FOURIER MAPS OF ELECTRICAL CIRCUITS IS WRONG ?
Let me ask you to ponder this: as something achieves speed of light, time for it stops relative to us who are stationary (Einstein’s theory of special relativity). In that regard, a photon of light that has been traveling for billions of years since the big bang, gets to our eyes in an instant, as far as the consciousness of the photons is concerned. At one moment it is at big bang and at the very same moment, it hits your eyes through a telescope! Do you understand the ramifications of this for fidelity of audio?
i am interested by links between fields, cracks between theories..
My most important reflection subject was the links between semiotic and linguistic..
I am interested by number theory meanings for philosophy...
I am interested by the way the Temple of Louxor was designed..
I am interested by the meaning of the poetic act speech...
I am interested by categoey theory in the approach of Alexander Grothendieck...
i am interested by the links between all that and more..
i like Dyonysos the areopagite the syrian mystic and the link between his three methods and set theory through Cantor works ... i studied it for 10 years...
Etc.. I am interested by the morphology of mammals and the Goethe method in the work of the physicist Henri Bortoft...<
I am interested by The work of Swedenborg about reality and quantum theory... i dont understand for now the link with Roger Boscovich...
i am interested bby READING and THINKING...
I am interested by the difference and similarity between Goethe more oriented perceptual phenomenology and Husserl more oriented conceptual phenomenology and their deep link through the "crisis of modern science" the deep last book of Husserl.....
i am interested by the way human brain perceived QUALITIES and OBJECTIVE INFORMATION from sound source in natural environment..
I am interested by the PHYSICAL OBJECTIVE INVARIANT which explain the information of sound sources to the geaturing and acting human body and why our generative ability to become sound source ourself and produce sound conditioned nature affordances and conditioned us in a particular direction of time to extract what is useful to our survival in a non linear way because our cochlea is non linear... By the way what is a spiral as mathematical object and symbolic object as Cassirer called them "symbolic forms" ...
it is why the thesis that audible informative qualities which must be reducible to ONLY Fourier electrical map seems preposterous to me . We need an ecological set of experiments protocols to understand hearing...
you are not able to understand a two page psycho-acoustic article it seems NOBODY answer me ANYTHING about it Amir dance around it with his measures schemas without adressing it : Magnasco and Oppenheim
i begin this discussion by thanking Amir for his free useful measures information..
Then i observed that the subjectivist-objectivist division was created by FOCUS on the gear pieces by electrical measures and focus on the gear piece by listening experience...One put against the other...
This DIVISION results from the gear market sellers and consumers conditioning not from psycho-acoustic science... The tool obsessed measuring minds used this division between sellers and consumers to claim their dogma as UNIQUE TRUTH... They sell their site ideology... They debunk... Some designers which use psycho-acoustic facts trust listening and hearings but do not say it loud because there are zealots crowds attacking them like they attack audiophiles listenings reviews as of no value at all... This is my perspective about this problem...
I suggested that in psycho-acoustic science this OPPOSITION and war is meaningless completely...
I explained why using many articles but especially one by Magnasco and Oppenheim...
No one even commented it nor any subjectivist nor any objectivist...
it seems people prefer to attack ad hominem instead of thinking..
I dont need to read diploma series from someone to understand with who i spoke...😊
I use arguments...
I like to discuss in good faith...
Anybody can read my posts and articles to explain a simple fact : Qualities are informative and grounded in experience in the natural world ...Electrical measures are essential for gear design and useful to pair the gear components or help to tune a room...but electrical measures do not replace acoustic training nor musical training and dont make psycho-acoustic problems delusions from someone who dont trust ONLY measures and then allegedly need blind test to have the right to speak ..
The ears/brain dont work like a Fourier computer...Period...
Sound sources are real and sound waves convey real qualitative information extracted from the sound sources by the non linear ears/brain in his time dependant domain...
Then objectivist and subjectivist division created by techno and gear market obsession is preposterous and dont exist in psycho-acoustic science.. On the opposite the relation between the real qualities perceived by the Easrs/brain and the link to Fourier Maps and acoustic and physical invariant is at the center of this field...
Maybe if everyone activate the manners that I’m assuming all have been taught are an asset when dealing with others this would go better.
Otherwise there may be nothing more of value to see here.
Where amir starts going on about how, explicitly or through snide comments, someone is a rube, a plebe, an unsophisticated troglodyte if they don’t agree with his value judgements and they actually like, and forfend(!), purchase something that does not “measure up” per amir, is where he becomes offensive.
Tossing the "fallacious" label at @painter24 is a prime example of true colors being revealed.
It has been implied in this thread that bad behavior in disagreement with Amir is equivalent to the bad behavior accusations leveled against Amir. No, there is an important difference. Amir and ASR only give lip service to the idea individuals are free to make their own choices. The ASR approach is to badger other into submission. Every non-compliant thought is dismissed as invalid, uninformed, biased, untrained, non-scientific, ignorant, unethical, etc., etc. This thread is nothing more than Amir arguing and badgering with excessively long posts,
@djones51 ASR doesn’t offer anything of value to us audiophiles. I’ve been there, done that, I’ve bought a 250$ DAC with pristine measurements thinking it would be all I’ll ever need. I’m poor, you see, so it’s easy to fall for ASR ’s claims. "Yaaay I got a great deal and you guys are all morons"
Unfortunately, those claims are utter BS in the real world for anyone who has EARS and actually LISTENS to their equipment. So, I’d rather see ASR as a disservice to the audiophile community, on top of being full with obnoxious (let’s call a cat a cat) members.
«Usually men walk in a map in their head they dont even see the territory, science as well as religions are maps and walls to protect us from the unknown and from the territory , but tools so useful they can be are not ourself, as transhumanist want us to believe and want us to merge with them, we need free spiritual moral survivalist in the real wold" -- Anonymus anarchist
" i need my barrel to live in and my sun, stay off of it", say Diogenes to Alexander master of the world asking to him what he need in front of the Diogenes sun ...
Well, pardon me. Do tell: can an audiophile tell the difference between high-res and CD with identical masters?
That serves only as a misdirection. You are claiming/showing a purported successful test. By you.
What theory? Two files that are presented as 24 bit/96 kHz while in reality one has a true dynamic range of 16 bits, can NOT be analyzed with any tool I have.
Hmmm, so the Great Amir can't measure it, but can hear it. My my, that sure sounds audiophile myth familiar doesn't it? Coming from the Great one??
Ok, not buying 😉. We both know you can/have measured the difference and already confessed on your forum how to cheat such a test by cranking the silence to give away the lower bit depth. Remember?
Nothing that complicated. I give it one out of three chances to be wrong, based on more than a decade of conducting double-blind and subjective tests and formal evaluations of my hearing. In other words, I know what percentage of time I have made a fool of myself in such tests . Versus being right.
We then have a long and established record of you being disingenuous about your self testing. So what I'm suggesting is you show this remarkable ability at PAF 24, proctored.
I heard that Amir had a chart that compared the relative value of measurements based on type of audio product. So that things like cables and DACS could be 100% judged by measurements and with things like speakers that % was less.
When I say that I learned how little measurements matter it is speaking relatively. I used to think much higher of them, that they told more than they do. I do believe they have value.
I would like to see this idea of nuance and relative value of measurements addressed by Amir. A consideration of the grey areas.
I will also treat you as you treat me, i know how to liquidated your paradox
Time dilation does not present a paradox. If you get on a spaceship and travel near speed of light for a month, you could arrive back on earth potentially hundreds of years later. Not only will any clock you carry with you verify this, but every fabric of your being will as well! This is a consequence of Einstein’s special theory of relativity where no experiment has managed to disprove it.
Therefore, a photon is simultaneously generated at big bang 13.8 billion years ago and dissipated now in your eye at the same time. This is what the laws of universe predict and isn’t subject to opinion calling it a paradox.
None of this was my question. My question which you did not answer, was what is the impact of this on fidelity of audio devices we use?
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