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.
Anybody welcome a set of measures and we thank him for that ...Nobody buy his ideological stance about their meanings ...Save naive techno babbling minds for sure.. 😊
Simple...
It is not the gear listenings or measuring who rule audio, it is the psycho-acoustic knowledge behind it... it is why the division between subjectivist and objectivist, created by techno babbling objectivist to begin with had no scientific meaning at all... It is marketing of the measuring toys against marketing the gear... It is marketing in the two cases... Amir against the designers, debunking them with his erroneous hearing theory , industrial one or craftmanship one...
it is simple to figure out why he is wrong...he dont know that hearing theory contradict his claims... And he believe blind test as some marketer use them too replace hearing knowledge and training...
Does he listen and perceive classical music nuances and meanings ? If he did he will know the difference between sound and music and the way they interpenetrate one another through human hearings paradoxical powers history in the recursive relation between productive sound ability and the way we perceive them ( non linearly and in a time dependant domain ) ...
No measures mean something out of his context of application and out of his interpretative context ... i learned it in the book of Benoit Mandelbrot about fractals and a complete redefinition of geometrical concepts first published in french, not in english, in autumn 1976... I read my first Mandelbrot article in the french pleiade about science in 1975 and here Mandelbrot described his idea about modelization of phone signals errors in phone lines , the first sketch of fractal geometry and the reason i bought his book the first day he was delivered in north America in french.. I read it in ectasy... Suddenly i realized i did not understand anything about space at all before reading it.... one of the best books i read in my list of books... now fractals geometry is everywhere... i like geometry... 😊
As Alain Connes suggested we can " listen" number theory rythms and we can "see" music shapes ...he is totally right... By the way this is not "poetry" but mathematical facts...
My suggestion to Amir would be to learn to tailor the message to the audience.
search posts by user almarg who posted here for many years. Al was a technical guy with tremendous technical knowledge and a lawyer. Not to forget most importantly a model gentleman. He knew how to present his technical cases to the jury effectively and was beloved here for it.
We need more gentlemen like Almarg these days everywhere Beating people over the head with things seems to be more the style these days and people are getting tired of it
Just trying to help. Almarg set a very high bar to try and match.
Amir seems to me to mostly address relevant issues. Seems he is the one being attacked first and he seems to show restraint on his responses trying to stick to the issues.
That’s just my take. He is bringing a lot of good information to the table whether one cares or not. We need more of that not less. Technology is the key to good sound and it doesn’t just happen by magic.
The problem is he cannot nor want to learn anything from anybody even physicists and acoustician... he sell marketing points...
But without discussing about his false "theory" of hearing, i will never had learn so much about what is at stake in hearings theory...
We cannot discuss with stupid people, but we can learn from ideological people... For example discussing with a marxist you must learn Marx economy theory..
If discussing with a neo liberal economist i would learn about the chicago school hidden roots...Bernard Mandeville the genius behind Adam Smith for example ...
Discussing with A chomskyan linguist we learn about other roads... ( Gustave Guillaume genius for me ) etc
At this point, for me, it’s more about pointing out his hypocrisy to others so they can understand how he operates and his true motivations.
His data is fine (for the most part). But the person and the means of how he tries to separate himself by others by discriminating against or degrading them otherwise is not something I will let slide. I’ve never liked bullies in all my years. Now that I've retired I don't mind spending my time exposing them when I see them. And Amir is exactly that. Anyone who doesn’t agree with him or gets more recognition than he does is suddenly an enemy of his even when their share the same goal of providing technical information to an audience. I’ve seen him do this countless times and is doing so again as I mentioned regarding a thread on the 5128 headphone measurement rig where he is currently belittling other headphone reviewers to make himself look better than them. :(
Go ahead and spam this forum with sponsored links and see how long you last.
You have continually posted snippets of your reviews with direct links to your website here and even one of your own videos*! (link below for bookkeeping)
On a single page (page 18) of this discussion I counted where you have provided FOUR links to your website. A website where you ask for donations after every review. There are numerous other posts by you in this thread where you have linked to your own website but I won’t bother to count them. If you consider posting one’s reviews to ASR as "spamming with sponsored links" then you, sir, are doing the exact same thing. I don’t care if you make zero money from anything you have ever done... you are still spamming this very forum with your own reviews. Multiple times a page. Yet you talk about others spamming forums. It’s comical.
Yet, you are still here. No one has banned you or deleted those partciular posts. Nor has a moderator come in and closed the thread. But by your own implied admission above, you should have expected it to happen.
Once again, however, I am certain you will rationalize your posts as being something different. A diversion attempt, as it were. And yet another example of your extreme hypocrisy.
@magisterGreat post. Glad you have finally see Amir clearly as the Sheldon of the audio hobby. Just like Sheldon, Amir claims to know everything and dismisses everyone else as ignorant. Just like Sheldon, Amir is threatened by mention of anything not in alignment with his belief system.
@kevnYou nailed it. Amir never actually engages in an honest discussion, instead replies with dismissive language, tangential topics, and long ramblings. Anyone that wants to examine all the charts, graphs, measurements, and opinion Amir produces can find it on ASR. Repeating all that ad nauseum here is proof positive Amir has no ability to communicate without constantly beating his chest - "Look what I did". Repeatedly points to previous audio research or papers to support his position. Others point to papers or subject matter experts that question Amir's orthodoxy and they are dismissed as not applicable.
A prediction. At some point in the near future Amir will reference this Audiogon forum thread as proof of his far reaching audience and immense influence on the audio hobby.
I cited Oppenheim and Magnasco to set the right hearing context theory with their important experiment after 60 years of acoustician thinking around this who goes in the same direction as these two physicists ..
Because the ears/brain are non linear and work in a time dependant DIRECTION,not on a mere frequencies basis in a time independant linear way as our tools works...
We cannot equate linear time independant measure which are good to create a well working circuits as being equally the perfect norm for "musicality" evaluation,
I explained in detail, even using the many articles of a competent physicists and acoustician and designer , Hans Van Maanen , who explain clearly all that matter,
He disparaged the Magnasco and Oppenheim experiments as non significative save to be a mere usual treshold hearing experiment throwing the baby of the essential non linear working of the brain out of Gabor bounds with the bath waters of hearing trivial thesholds relative measures,
he treated Van Maanen in an ad hominem attack as a vulgar seller , knowing perfectly that anybody who is able to understand science will know that his papers are serious thinking...
Especially his paper titled : "Often disregarded Conditions for the correct
Application of Fourier Theory"..
After that the nail in the coffin , i pointed to the fact that the ears/brain working non linearly in his own time dependant domain , the level of resolution of the perceived signals cannot be enhanced LINEARLY by perfect linear INCREASE in the signals, but INSTEAD can be enhanced in some case with the right amount and right type of noise, then the signal to noise ratio behaviour cannot be measured better than by hearings experiments as with Magnasco and Oppenheim .
To no avail...he never adressed any of the main point i gave...
Anybody reading his answers will read him as a marketer who drawn the fish of hearing theory in the water of marketing bad faith...
There is one thing i did not understand at all...
i know there is plenty of competent people on ASR, and scientifically inclined professionnaly or by taste, if one of them read my discussion with Amir, and his bad faith answers smearing any valid point in the noise of blind test and his limited set of measures with ad nauseam examples from his reviews instead of arguing AGAINST my point... And the complete distortion of the main point with ad hominem attack against three competent physicists, my question is : why Amir is not ashamed and in fear that some competent member of ASR read his techno babble as it is : MARKETING of TOYS...Anyone can see that he never adressed the hearing theory context where any set of measures can be evaluated ?
Explain that to me... I discuss always in good faith and i will be ashamed to miss an argument EXCEPT if i dont understand the subject matter by my own fault...
is Amir completely ignorant ? or is Amir without shame ?
i dont know which one of this alternative is the good one...
I never discussed ONLY to win an argument, i discussed to learn first .. I spoke a very bad English because i never spoke english in my life... And i read only the limited clumsy abstract limited vocabulary of scientists and philosophers not great novelists... i read the great John Cowper Powys for example in translation ( too slow to read for me in english because of my lack of concrete vocabulary ), but in french i learned how to read multidisciplinary analysis methods and taught it... My knowledge is limited but i can read anything and compared it to anything...i can even think about for example the relation between non commutative geometry and the musical scale perception and the laws of physical and qualitative invariants behind it and put this in relation with the hearing theory and the time dependant domain in speech and in music.. I did not adressed these questions with Amir because he was unable to adress the basic in good faith, i even can explain why meanings arise in symmetry breaking in linguistic levels as in music ... in short i know nothing but i know how to read people who know something as Alain Connes in mathematics the father of non commutative modern geometry or Gustave Guillaume in linguistic, the greatest linguist over Chomsky himself or Akpan J. Essien in acoustic ( he is unknown by the way ) etc ...
Amir know how to sell something and he know how to use his toys tools... Thats all for me...And he know how to "boss" people around him...
@somethingsomethingaudio: so you will choose the Benchmark DAC over the Topping because you like its appearance? LOL! You know what they say about America - "It's a free Country!"
You will see them after the listening, the correct sequence unlike all your "reviews".
To do so, you need to come back with an ears only test. Why is it so difficult to accept when all you talk about is "trust your ears?" How come you must see what you are testing?
Exactly. See, your own words say it best. You will only need your ears at PAF 2024. Or excuses ;-).
Was not familiar with this fellow until just now. I will only say as a musician and engineer that it's silly for someone who is not a highly experienced recording engineer, highly experienced musician, or a respected music maker in any legit capacity to claim definitive hearing abilities. And if he is claiming that balanced audio interconnects are all basically the same sounding things, nothing past that is of value.
Sensitivity and repetitive practice are key to build our listening skill. AB comparisons at times are needed, yet it's always with the intent of learning how to trust our evolving listening skill. Frame of Reference is key. If our frame of reference is objectivist measurements, we've missed the point of music making and music listening completely. Music is not a science project. Faulty premise.
Measuring one thing in a chain of things as a way to judge it is good for those who have not learned to trust, or who are afraid to learn to trust themselves.
Thank you for your response, Amir. I realise you must think that I’ve only been leading you on all along instead of calling you out directly, only to hurt you after gaining your trust, but that was not my agenda in the least. Please accept my apologies for this seeming so, and also for incorrectly assuming you deleted your own post.
My posts began as a sincere desire to more fully understand you, and as an attempt to intellectually and morally challenge you over issues of discourse you may not have been aware about, having nothing to do with your intelligence, which you obviously possess, but over cognitive dissonance, which we all suffer, in varying degrees.
In the course of our exchange, I began to see the pattern I described in my last post, and was trying to figure a way to broach the topic without having you hunker down and close off to deeper discussion, as I have seen repeatedly in your other exchanges here in this thread. I wanted to word what I was trying to communicate in a way so as to not make you feel threatened, hence my polite deferral to how occupied you must be with all the replies you were engaged with, among many other things.
That said, you are still paltering and prevaricating in your most recent reply. Everything you have said about doctors and diagnosis is true, but are completely unrelated to the statement I made, which you have quoted. True science is indeed about everything that you are not doing, as you merely perform tests based on established theories of what is known. Nothing you have said in your recent post refutes this.
The third paragraph in your reply is the perfect example of paltering - you should address the problems I found in your earlier replies before repeating the same problems in attempt to confuse the discussion. Poor Magister had it the worst - he might not have realised there is an actual term that defines exactly your type of behaviour in communication, and got drawn into your rabbit-hole of semantic subterfuge. Amir, everything you reference, from ITU protocols and bibles, to blind listening tests with multiple variables and just half the measurements needed to understand electromagnetism; everything you reference shows how entrenched you are in the established, the norm, and the tired bureaucratic world of performance testing. You are a performance tester, not a scientist. Not a bad thing, if you still have questions as a proper student of science, rather than the staid answers of the teacher you want to be.
I would still like to keep communication channels open with you, if you are willing to engage with less of a need to defend everything and all you believe in – I have found that singular viewpoints only result in opinions, while a discourse over the relationships between multiple viewpoints is what feeds the power of shared knowledge, and the wisdom that follows.
And I would still like to hear your views (note views and not mere view : ), on my remarks on electromagnetism, and the case being that measurements only engage half the equation.
In somewhat more growingly distant acquaintanceship - kevin
but if it measures well and sounds marginal, it is no longer in consideration. Do I need to listen blind and with perfect AB comparisons etc., heck no, i trust my ears- and more importantly, what I am attempting to achieve with the sound that i get in my listening environment...and that is all. YMMV.
We have no disagreement on "sound in a listening room" mattering. The problem is that you keep talking about "ears" where in reality you have no idea what went into them. Measurements tell you that but you refuse to acknowledge that.
What you do acknowledge is that you are not following a proper protocol so your brain is forced to only judge the sound in your room. You are refusing to believe that you are human and how a human reacts and perceives stimulus.
Let's say I give you two pieces of equipment that produce identical sound. You vote them as being different sounding to you. You made a mistake, right? But how do you? Without a protocol, you have no idea. You make your judgement and then go online and rave about some product when you could be dead wrong.
Compare that to doing that test blind. Get a friend to switch A vs B 10 times and see if you at least differentiate the two items 9 times. One of two things happen: you do get it all right. Or you fail. See the power of using a proper protocol? How it will guard against you fooling yourself?
Run the above a few times and you will sober up real good. You will no longer go around and say "I trust my ears" because you will have evidence that what you thought was input from your ears, clearly was not.
BUT, i do not believe that measurements are the B all, and end all, of the decision making process;
This line keeps getting repeated even though I have answered it multiple times. For large class of products, measurements are absolutely "B all." Take fancy wires. Measurements including music null tests and knowledge of engineering conclusively prove that they bring no advantage over generic ones. DACs and amplifiers that beat the threshold of hearing fall in the same category.
Incredible number of audiophiles have put the above to test by trusting the measurements and be better for it. They walk away with full understanding of what these products do and how they are engineered.
they are a data point (pun) and to me..that is all. Listening to a piece of gear in my room and my system is the deciding factor.
Whatever you do is obvious is your business. The issue is that you are advocating for such by posting here. I am here to tell you that most of the tests that audiophiles run are incorrect and generate noise instead of data. It is trivial to get you to like something at home without it having merit.
Reminds of the strategy behind dog treats: "they have to look appetizing to the owner not the pet!" You think a dog cares about the treat looking like a dog bone? No, it is the owner that is made to think it must be tasty treat for the dog, the real facts be damned.
We have simple protocols and rules for how to get proper results with home listening but you don't to go there. Why? Because it invalidates your public point of view and past purchases Well, that can't be helped. The truth is the truth.
So please don't repeat these lines to me. I have addressed them countless times.
I see that your most recent reply to me has been deleted, amir, and I can only assume you have done so, since no one else would have had anything to gain doing so.
Your assumption is incorrect. The post was reported and deleted:
"Hi amir_asr
Your Post was removed by a moderator
2023-07-08 18:18:45 UTC
@kevn Thanks for taking time to reply : ) - may I assume that my having you at a disadvantage is your acknowledgement you had not directly respo..."
Briefly, I congratulated you for getting 6 out of 6 right. I advised you to in the future to capture the output of the program so there is no doubt. I also recommended that you run the test twice in a row. 6 trials is not much and it is possible to get that by guessing. Again, good job but next time be clear when you are asking me a question. Don’t hide your real intentions.
Friend of mine recently bought a Benchmark AHB2. He was basically sold on the spec’s and then to some extent- the reviews/price. To say that once he bought it home that he was disappointed, would be an understatement. Luckily, he was able to sell it on and lost little on the transaction.
@amir_asr I have never said that price (high or low) alone justifies a product...never. I have also never stated that measurements should not have an important part in the design process, or in the ability of the consumer to consider a product. BUT, i do not believe that measurements are the B all, and end all, of the decision making process; they are a data point (pun) and to me..that is all. Listening to a piece of gear in my room and my system is the deciding factor. I would state that if a piece under consideration measures well and sounds good, that is a good sign, but if it measures well and sounds marginal, it is no longer in consideration. Do I need to listen blind and with perfect AB comparisons etc., heck no, i trust my ears- and more importantly, what I am attempting to achieve with the sound that i get in my listening environment...and that is all. YMMV.
I see that your most recent reply to me has been deleted, amir, and I can only assume you have done so, since no one else would have had anything to gain doing so.
For context to my reply to that, I have attached the URL screen captures of the said reply, for anyone wanting to follow the discussion -
Thanks amir, as always, for your quick reply. Reading through it, however, I felt deep disappointment, as I had expected logical and relevant insight.
Instead, I have begun to see a pattern with all your replies not just to me, but with most participants in this thread. In every reply you have sent me, you have never answered directly. In your first reply, you referred to an unrelated topic on ‘learning how to listen’ when my question was about inherent listening ability. I let that go, and brought your attention to your misread of my question, to have you engage wordplay with my having you at ‘disadvantage’, but then prevaricate by saying you had given a clear answer and in doing so, avoid acknowledgement of your oversight. You then qualify your disapproval of the listening test I asked about, by referring to an anecdote about learning once again, this time by way of paltering over a CD on Japanese language instruction.
I then reply as thoroughly as I can, in response to a question you ask about the test in question, only to then receive a rude reply, denying the logical and conflating my reply with manhood comparisons, once again avoiding the issue that the blind listening tests you advocate are not proper tests, as they have two variables in them, the listener and equipment comparisons, lacking proper controls.
Amir, the way you communicate is through prevarication, conflation and paltering, to avoid direct answer or confrontation with the actual issues under discussion. You present completely unrelated truths to the discussion at hand as argument time and again, in more technical discussion or prosaic response, in order to drag any one attempting to engage reasonable discussion into an endless rabbit warren of linguistic subterfuge, wearing down the other participant with ever increasing divergence until the other quits, in frustration or plain exhaustion.
This lack of sincerity on your part has made me believe your words in discussion can no longer be trusted.
In your most recent reply to me, you countered the simple test for listening ability I presented (on music file resolution) through paltering once again, presenting another listening test you have taken (on injected distortion into selected music files), in complete disregard of the entirely different nature and objectives of each test - Tests on injected distortion examine hearing ability, while tests on file resolution examine listening skill - Hearing ability cannot be changed much; while listening skill, innately poor or good, can be developed. Hearing need not have anything to do with the nuanced ebb and flow of the time domain. Listening is entirely about the most subtle cues of timing and rhythm.
Aside from that, even your statistical calculations lie, as you only calculated for the probability of five correct tracks in a row - getting all six tracks correct moves the decimal one more spot left, leaving a statistical probability of 1.6 percent - well below your passing standard of 13 percent - yet another attempt to pass off a lie as truth.
You conflate and palter entirely unrelated ideas and truths to confuse, convolute and twist any discussion underway to make it appear - at least, to less observant readers - that you have the upper hand. It should be quite clear to anyone reading your replies to me that while you may have above average abilities in hearing, your listening abilities are below average - you gave quite good clue you could not even tell the different resolutions of music files apart. You opine the test was designed to have participants say there is no difference between the tested files, because you could tell no differences yourself when you tried listening to them – it is a truth only you know in your heart, but do not yet know how to confront, because it destroys the entire narrative you have built around measurements.
Amir, the missing piece of your narrative is the other half of the equation called electromagnetism, since all that science has been able to measure is the electrical side - the constantly changing shape and profound nuance of the magnetic field carrying the complexity of a musical signal defies all attempts at measurement. You will say that the electrical side carries all that information, to which I would say that’s why what you claim to do cannot be called science – you ignore all possible relationships, in focussing on just one. You might also say that everything about magnetism can be measured, which is so patently untrue, only the most ignorant would believe that. The relationships that govern electromagnetism are still mysterious to scientists, never mind the effect those relationships have on sound reproduction.
The other missing piece to your narrative, Amir, is self-critique, the humility required to take the next step to the unknown - to not always need to feel to be in command, and let that obsessive compulsion go, if even for a moment, for actual fresh discovery to be found - the stuff true science is made of. You will say all discoveries have already been made in the field of electromagnetism and resultant sound quality, to which even a half-wit will tell you, is not only patently untrue, but frighteningly anti-scientific.
The Sufi have a proverb - ‘If you want to destroy a man, praise him” - it is something I have tried to live by my entire life, not by way of destroying others, but in avoiding the destruction of myself. There is so much of this proverb I see you have allowed to be sown within yourself.
I have found my greatest teachers to have been those who welcome the smallest challenge in the hope of discovering the missing pieces they do not yet know, rather than rejecting all challenge in the possible face of losing all they think they do. True science is the discovery of everything we do not yet understand, not the constant regurgitation of everything that is already established. Electrical measurements in isolation are part of that regurgitation, of the known that merely support ignorance and indoctrination, not true teaching. Indoctrination creates followers and what others cruelly call minions, while teaching inspires new leaders who will exceed what has been taught.
Part of regaining your humility, Amir, as well the ability to self-critique, is to be less cognitively dissonant and more self-aware in understanding that you engage the practice of paltering, prevarication and conflation that characterise politicians and their ilk - it attracts many, who admire those who appear to be in complete command of themselves, but who in fact live very small lives. It also, unfortunately, gives those with unpracticed ears and mind the easy way out, in not bothering to train their listening minds to develop profoundly.
Your method should scare any audiophile beyond belief, because the fear of losing their skills for listening and independent thinking should shake them into training their listening skills well, because any lazy listener can merely adopt your numbers to ease themselves the effort of developing their listening abilities, claiming, as you do, that the difference cannot be heard.
I do not expect my words will make any difference to you, since narcissists commonly suffer cognitive dissonance to such degree, their entire world collapses with the loss of the narratives they have built up around themselves. But even so, I have hope that if you are able to regain the humility to self-critique, you will see that the label of ‘teacher’ that you wear so proudly, is the very one destroying your very ability to think critically, as a student of deeper learning. You could make tremendous contribution to true knowledge.
Nonetheless, I wish you well, and the strength to question your presumptions, assumptions, and ingrained dominant paradigms.
"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction." (Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse , 1872)
"The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon," (Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873)
"The super computer is technologically impossible. It would take all of the water that flows over Niagara Falls to cool the heat generated by the number of vacuum tubes required." (Professor of Electrical Engineering, New York University)
"There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom." (Robert Millikan, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1923)
"Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific advances." (Dr. Lee DeForest, Father of Radio & Grandfather of Television)
"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible!" (Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895)
"The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives." (Admiral William Leahy, re: US Atomic Bomb Project)
When the steam locomotive came on the scene; the best (scientific) minds proclaimed, "The human body cannot survive speeds in excess of 35MPH."
Until recently (21st Century); and the advent of the relatively new science of Fluid Dynamics, the best (scientific) minds involved in Aerodynamics, could not fathom how a bumblebee stays aloft.
Often; Science has to catch up with the facts/phenomena of Nature and/or, "reality" (our universe).
I haven't been in school since the 60's, but- at Case Institute of Technology; the Physics Prof always emphasized what we were studying was, "Electrical THEORY." He strongly made a point of the fact that no one had yet actually observed electrons (how they behave on the quantum level) and that only some things can really be called, "LAWS." (ie: Ohm, Kirchoff, Faraday)
PERHAPS: that's changed in recent years and I missed it?
Feynman was and will remain, my favorite lecturer (yeah: I'm that old).
He mentioned often (and: I took to heart) his favorite Rule of Life: "Never stop learning!"
For all his genius, he never grew overly confident in his beliefs. The perfect obverse to the Dunning-Kruger sufferer.
ie: “I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong.”
and: “I have approximate answers, and possible beliefs, and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I’m not absolutely sure of anything.”
Tesla is probably my favorite innovator, who (despite the incessant, projectile vomit, from his day's naysayers), took the World, kicking and screaming, into the 20th century, with his inventions.
Had you, at any point, actually addressed me; I would have responded to your inane and vapid retorts to my post sooner.
Believing this thread a waste of time: I hadn't bothered to peruse the stupidity any further, until tonight.
Then I noticed that you'd quoted me (pg 15).
I'll copy/paste my post, to save keystrokes.
"No one can tell you whether/how your system, room and/or ears will respond to some new addition. There are simply too many variables.
LIKEWISE: no one can possibly know whether a new addition (ie: some kind of disc, crystal, fuse, interconnect, speaker cable, etc) will make a difference, in their system and room, with their media and to their ears, without trying them for themselves.
Some companies offer a 30 Day Satisfaction Guarantee, so- those that are actually interested, have absolutely nothing to lose, by trying (experimenting with) such.
Anyone that knows anything about the sciences, realizes that something like 96% of what makes up this universe, remains a mystery.
For centuries; humanity’s seen, heard, felt and otherwise witnessed phenomena, that none of the best minds could explain, UNTIL they developed a science or measurement, that could explain it.
The Naysayer Church wants you to trust their antiquated science (1800’s electrical theory) and faith-based, religious doctrine, BLINDLY ("Trust ME!").
Theories have never proven or disproven anything. It’s INVARIABLY testing and experimentation that proves or disproves theories/hypotheses.
IF you’re interested in the possibility of improving your system’s presentation, have a shred of confidence in your capacity for perceiving reality and trust your own senses: actually TRY whatever whets your aural appetite, FOR YOURSELF.
The Naysayer Church HATES it, when THAT happens! "
That you assume so much, regarding the possible listening experience, aural acuity, professionalism, education, cognition and a host of other variables, regarding the members of this forum, the vast amount of your bloviating and condescension; I can only infer that the Dunning-Kruger Effect has deep roots in your skull.
Red and blue socks? Science and Engineering? Dark Matter and my car?
SPARE ME!
What I believe regarding the behavior of electromagnetic fields, how dielectrics, conductors and Poynting Vectors (which are affected by the frequencies in our music/signals) might affect our presentation is based on the Physics (QED and Particle-Wave Theory), studied in college.
Unlike you and the rest of the planet's Naysayer Church members (Denyin'tologists), some: so proudly touting their extensive knowledge of antiquated (1800's) Electrical Theory, that feel it necessary, to SAVE US from our broken, worthless and deceitful mental faculties.
That you have a website makes you somewhat of a Pope of Deyin'tology, I suppose, able to feverishly spread your Gospel, to more lost sheeple.
@amir_asr gray is everywhere. Space in your head. In outer space. There is color too. Black and white thinking causes racism. It causes wars and intolerance. Which is what you’re propagating. I believe in old audio as I do in new. I heard atc recently. Sounded neutral. It sounded boring compared to the harbeths next to it. Why would I buy something that doesn’t interest me or excite me to look at and play every day. That topping dac is nice in its measurements but the benchmark looks better and is made in the USA so for those reasons I’ll take that over the topping. Why can’t people take measurements into account and spice them up with other variables? The only good black and white I know is in an Oreo cookie.
There you go again, making assumptions that everything is black or white and there is no such thing as "gray" in between. This is common engineer-only type of behavior and reaction. Its to be expected.
Putting aside that my last job was a Corporate VP in charge of a full division including marketing, business, PR and of course engineering, my job is to remove those shades of gray. I strive to find audio products that shrink impairments below threshold of hearing as you see above. This is what gives clarity and confidence to buyers. This is why so many people are gravitating to this science and engineering based method of evaluating audio technology.
High-end audio industry wants that gray fog out there. They want you to not know left from right. They want you think any and all thing can change the sound. They want you to think you all are the greatest listeners there and what one hears has little to do with what another hears. That way, all of you can be simultaneously right. There is a market for everything then.
You cut through the fog by combining multiple disciplines together. We use audio research in advance areas such as perception of sound in a room. We use electronic engineering design to tell the difference from real to imaginary in design. We use measurements to tease out the performance of a product or lack thereof. And we use controlled listening tests when needed to arrive at unbiased outcomes.
Yes, some gray is still left in there. Speakers and rooms are that way and headphones eve more. But outside of that if you think the world is gray, that is just wrong. We cut through that day in and day out ad are happier for it.
instead of believing what I posted about Halcro’s, I suggest Amir buy a set of their amps, he will marvel at their spec’s, and he will probably enjoy their sound. Plus, he can get a very good price on them…I wonder why? LOL.
The feedforward technology in that Halcro amp (and prior, from Kenwood and others), has completely transformed the headphone amplifier market. THX reintroduced it by eliminating the inductor in the design and with it, make a giant leap in distortion and and noise. Drop.com shipped an amplifier with it in it and changed the industry forever. The amplifier was raved about by both objectivists and subjectivists.
The THX design then created an arm race among a number of companies to even better its performance. They used a composite op-amp technology (op-amp in feedback loop) which avoided THX patents while producing even lower levels of noise and distortion. Topping was the first company to do this. Check out their latest incarnation, the A70 Pro:
Check out the stunning performance as far as distortion and noise:
Distortion is at whopping -150 dB. As a way of reference, best case hearing threshold is -115 dB. We now have 35 dB of headroom!
The noise performance is better than the best DACs even though this amplifier produces more power:
At $499, this headphone amplifier costs less then the shipping cost of many high-end gear!
It is this kind of transformation which is fueling interest in what we do at ASR. The measurements have created a closed loop process with clear goals of what needs to be done to create state of the art audio products.
Same technology is now used in low to mid power power amplifiers with similar stellar results. Again here is Topping LA 90 Discrete:
It now beats Benchmark AHB2 which was also based on same feedforward technology as Halcro/THX:
Will be interesting to see if they scale it up in power some more.
Net, net, there is an incredible world of technology that you are not aware of. It is advancing in real time and provide incredible pleasure to us as true music lovers who want full transparency to the source.
@daveyfClearly he likes it. He has spent so much time its kind if not believable on here. And he is arguing on his site. I like a good debate as much as the next person but at a certain point I want middle ground and a commonality. He is like the Antifa or Maga of audio
Amir seems to like to argue for the sake of arguing. I noticed that he conveniently fails to highlight in his example the words…’However, I couldn't escape the feeling that the amplifier's tonal balance was on the lean, cool side.’
instead of believing what I posted about Halcro’s, I suggest Amir buy a set of their amps, he will marvel at their spec’s, and he will probably enjoy their sound. Plus, he can get a very good price on them…I wonder why? LOL.
@amir_asrIncredible that people with eyes wide open continue to claim that they only used their ears.
There you go again, making assumptions that everything is black or white and there is no such thing as "gray" in between. This is common engineer-only type of behavior and reaction. Its to be expected. Nobody confirmed we are only using our ears. Only you said this. We all see how you make up your own rules and conclusions, yet typically not respectful of others input when it comes down to it.
Sure we respect measurements. It’s a helpful guideline to test, measure, validate however we can, the best we can. Most everyone gets that Aamir. However, it does not encapsulate the whole spectrum of what some hear or don’t hear. I believe there is a long ways to go with scientific measurement, tools, and what’s going on with humans and hearing today. There are wild animals that hear and see things in the darkness that we cannot even begin to fully understand yet as humans.
One last thought - your measurement results do not always coincide with what we are hearing some times. Your definition of "perfect" is your opinion, not always fact for some of us here. This is something you will likely choose to continue to ignore. That’s okay. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion - whether you like it or not. That’s what makes for good horse races and keeps audio alive and well LOL.
Magnasco and Oppenheim experiment demonstrated the nature of non linear human hearing and how the ears beat the uncertainty Fourier principle or the Gabor bounds and then why we need more an ecological theory of hearing than a hearing theory inspired By Fourier linear frequencies based methods ... the consequence of all this is that a set of linear measure used in design for the control and the good behavior of components CANNOT predicted a good sound experience only by the lecture of the number measured.. Amir for sure negated this fact and never adressed the fact that any measures must be interpreted in some hearing theory context to be meaningful and also compared with the set of all possible measures not only with the Amir limited chosen sets..
But there is more to say ...
But what are the consequence of the non linear structure of the ears in the ways audio signals are treated by the ears ?
It turns out that a small amount of noise can improve the way the signals will be perceived... Yes you read it here and well...
Then "tweakers" and audiophile experimenting with cables can rejoice...😊
Good cable are not those measured by Amir after all...
All there is to tell to the ears is not in the perfection of a linearly PERFECT measured signals in the design process , not for the human ears..
it seems that the design process as said Van Maanen is more about noise and signals degradation CONTROLS than about inexistant linear perfection... Van Maanen called these controls the " Often disregarded Conditions for the correct
Application of Fourier Theory"... Amir claim his set of linear measures is perfect to tell all the story, no need for conditions for the correct application of Fourier theory ... As he said, Van Maanen is a fraudster trying to sell his amplifier... Amir him dont try to sell his method...😊
Hearing, audition, or audioception, is one of the Famous Five of our twenty or so senses. Indeed, it is the most powerful sense, having about 100 dB of dynamic range, compared to about 90 dB for vision. 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.
What difference does it make if hearing is nonlinear? Well, nonlinear perception produces some interesting effects. Some of them are especially interesting to us because hearing is analogous to the detection of seismic signals — which are just very low frequency sounds, after all.
Stochastic resonance (Zeng et al, 2000)
One of the most unintuitive properties of nonlinear detection systems is that, 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. Like this:
I have long wondered what sort of nonlinear detection system in geophysics might benefit from a small amount of noise. It also occurs to me that signal reconstruction methods like compressive sensing might help estimate that ’hidden’ signal from the few semi-random samples that peep above the threshold. If you know of experiments in this, I’d love to hear about it.
Better than Heisenberg (Oppenheim & Magnasco, 2012)
Denis Gabor realized in 1946 that Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle also applies to linear measures of a signal’s time and frequency. That is, methods like the short-time Fourier transform (STFT) cannot provide the time and the frequency of a signal with arbitrary precision. Mathematically, the product of the uncertainties has some minimum, sometimes called the Fourier limit of the time–bandwidth product.
So far so good. But it turns out our hearing doesn’t work like this. It turns out we can do better — about ten times better.
Oppenheim & Magnasco (2012) asked subjects to discriminate the timing and pitch of short sound pulses, overlapping in time and/or frequency. Most people were able to localize the pulses, especially in time, better than the Fourier limit. Unsurprisingly, musicians were especially sensitive, improving on the STFT by a factor of about 10. While seismic signals are not anything like pure tones, it’s clear that human hearing does better than one of our workhorse algorithms.
Isolating weak signals (Gomez et al, 2014)
One of the most remarkable characteristics of biological systems is adaptation. It seems likely that the time–frequency localization ability most of us have is a long-term adaption. But it turns out our hearing system can also rapidly adapt itself to tune in to specific types of sound.
Listening to a voice in a noisy crowd, or a particular instrument in an orchestra, is often surprisingly easy. A group at the University of Zurich has figured out part of how we do this. Surprisingly, it’s not high-level processing in the auditory cortex. It’s not in the brain at all; it’s in the ear itself.
That hearing is an active process was known. But the team modeled the cochlea (right, purple) with a feature called Hopf bifurcation, which helps describe certain types of nonlinear oscillator. They established a mechanism for the way the inner ear’s tiny mechanoreceptive hairs engage in active sensing.
What does all this mean for geophysics?
I have yet to hear of any biomimetic geophysical research, but it’s hard to believe that there are no leads here for us. Are there applications for stochastic resonance in acquisition systems? We strive to make receivers with linear responses, but maybe we shouldn’t! Could our hearing do a better job of time-frequency localization than any spectral decomposition scheme? Could turning seismic into music help us detect weak signals in the geological noise?
All very intriguing, but of course no detection system is perfect... you can fool your ears too!
Years back, when Halcro first came to market, one of their claims to fame was that they had amps that were exhibiting such amazing measurements that they were ground breaking. No other manufacturer could deliver a product with the type of measurements that these amps delivered. Problem was that as soon as any reviewer with half a decent ear listened to them, they were pretty much dismissed as not good sounding at all!( even though JA and others did measure them and were astounded by what they found, which conformed to Halcro's marketing).
Sound
"To this day, I have yet to hear any amplifier that equals the dm58's combination of complete neutrality, harmonic generosity, lightning reflexes, and a sense of boundless power that is difficult to describe," was how Paul Bolin summed up his experience with Halcro's dm58 monoblock. It also nicely describes my reaction to the dm58 when the review pair briefly spent some time in my listening room.
Ahem. It is not going your way, is it? :) Continuing:
The dm38 didn't pale in comparison with my 18-month-old memories of the dm58s. "Awesome dynamics," I noted, after playing Prince's Musicology (CD, NPG 74645 84692 7) two times through after hearing Prince live at Madison Square Garden; "awesome!"
[...]
Perhaps more important, as well as excellent macrodynamics—the differences between loud and soft and how consistent the amplifier's presentation was at the dynamic extremes—the dm38 also excelled at reproducing microdynamics. By this mean I mean how well it preserved the tonal and imaging differences among different sonic objects at different levels.
[...]
The Halcro allowed me easily to identify how each instrument was contributing to the combined tone, regardless of the speakers I was using. At the risk of venturing into the semantic void, it wasn't just that the dm38 reproduced the sounds of instruments or voices with superb fidelity; it also excelled at reproducing the space between those instruments. Remember that the stereo image is an illusion, its fragility due to the brain's having to put aside what the ears actually hear in favor of reconstructing a simulated space between and behind the speakers.
Still not backing your claim. But maybe it is this bit of subjectivity that you are hanging your hat on:
So, the dm38 combined great dynamics and great bass control with a superbly transparent view into the recorded soundstage. Its treble was free from grain and its midrange was as smooth as silk. However, I couldn't escape the feeling that the amplifier's tonal balance was on the lean, cool side.
He ends with:
Summing up
It may be expensive, but Halcro's dm38 effortlessly joins the ranks of top-rated power amplifiers, not only for its sound quality but also its measured performance (not a given; witness some recent reviews).
[...]
Like the dm58 monoblock, the dm38 is balanced toward the cool side of the spectrum—though I am sure Bruce Candy will argue that the Halcro amplifiers are actually neutral compared with the competition—so it will work best with speakers and source components that don't themselves sound lean. But with optimal system matching, the Halcro's effortless dynamics and astonishingly clean presentation will satisfy the listener's soul.
So this matches your definition of "they were pretty much dismissed as not good sounding at all!"??? Really? He couldn't gosh any more than he did. Was he wrong about all of the above? That it can satisfy your soul?
Conclusion The Halcro dm38 is among the best amplifiers in the world at any price. Its sound quality easily competes with the amplifiers from Krell, Mark Levinson, Pass Labs, Bel Canto, Spectral, Ayre, Boulder or any of the other players in the ultra-high-end market. At this level of performance, the sonic characteristics of the amplifiers become harder and harder to describe as they become closer to the proverbial "closer to the music" phenomenon. However, if forced to describe the Halcro's sound quality I find the Halcro sound to be similar to that of the Krell FPB series except a bit quicker and with less weight in the bass. For those in the market for a reference grade amplifier with the ability to resolve the slightest nuances, I strongly recommend a close look at the Halcro dm series.
This is your definition of bad review?
No, companies go out of business because in high end audio, it is 80% marketing, 20% engineering. Fail at the former and you go out of business.
I’d be interested in any info people have about specific product reviews on asr that you think got it wrong. The findings are all there for public consumption. Please post a link if you know of examples. Thanks
Listening test says hey...these speakers sound what we feel is as close to the real as we have ever heard; measurements say they sound like mud with a dollop of distortion on top...who here is a buyer?? ....;0)
The problem is, you are short of any bias controlled listening tests that show this. You keep saying that such exists, but can't even remotely demonstrate it. As I said should be possible to at least create a contrived one but you don't even have that.
For our part, we have large library of tests that show the opposite of what you claim. That good measurements often do predict better sound. Take this Audio Engineering paper:
Some New Evidence That Teenagers May Prefer Accurate Sound Reproduction Sean E. Olive, AES Fellow
Check out this set of measurements ordered from top being A and bottom D:
See how clean and tidy the top speaker is and how "muddy" the measurements are in the rest? Keep that in mind as you read the results of the listening tests:
There are some clear visual correlations between the subjective preference ratings of the loudspeakers, and shape and smoothness of their measured curves. The most preferred loudspeaker (Loudspeaker A) has the flattest and smoothest on-axis and listening window curves, which is well maintained in its off-axis curves. In contrast to this, the less preferred Loudspeakers B, C and D all show various degrees of misbehavior in their magnitude response both on and off-axis. Loudspeaker B has a “boom-and-tizz” character from the overemphasis in the low and high frequency ranges, combined with an uneven midrange response. Loudspeaker C has a similar mismatch in level between the bass and midrange/treble, in addition to a series of resonances above 300 Hz that appear in all of the spatially averaged curves. Loudspeaker D has a relatively smooth response across all of its curves but there is a large mismatch in level at 400 Hz between the bass and the midrange/treble regions. Together these irregularities in the on and off-axis curves are indicative of sound quality problems that were reflected in the lower preference ratings given to Loudspeakers B, C and D.
We are so lucky that what our ears pass for good sound, also passes the test of logic: that we want neutral sounding speakers. Not something that screws up the tonality of our content. That is again, if we just listen and don't look.
Above is also the reason I keep asking @soundfield for measurements. This should always be the first question you ask of any speaker company. If they don't have measurements are are afraid of sharing them, run, and run fast.
We know Amir, we know. But you'll have to trust your ears for once.
But what about those measurements? I would imagine if they are complimentary, as the company salesman you would want people to see them. Ergo, they must not paint a good picture of either your skill in measuring them, or flaws they expose.
How about people who want to measure measure and people who want to feel feel. Neither is a crime and it makes everyone happy which should really be the only goal. Otherwise the result is a thread like this where people just double down on their positions and argue. Gets old fast.
”She has illusion and you have reality. May you find your way to be as pleasant!”
Listening test says hey...these speakers sound what we feel is as close to the real as we have ever heard; measurements say they sound like mud with a dollop of distortion on top...who here is a buyer?? ....;0)
To do so, you need to come back with an ears only test. Why is it so difficult to accept when all you talk about is "trust your ears?" How come you must see what you are testing?
I want to see the measurements. I like to see the measurements.
We know Amir, we know. But you'll have to trust your ears for once.
Yes we can. And, there it is for all to see. My goal was to further expose more of your self-inflicted BS to everyone here. Wishing you best of luck on the future!
The only thing you exposed is that the most basic fundamentals in how you assess sound fidelity is not know or appreciated.
Give me that poor measuring DAC, and i will put it in an old beaten up box that looks like a $20 audio gear from 1970s and i will guarantee that everyone like you will hate its "sound." And heap praise on the well measuring gear you said didn't "sound" as good.
You can't be this proud of ignoring how your brain works. Are you?
You’ll be listening to them, same thing. You didn’t see measurements at Harman of the various speakers prior to listening on the shuffler. Trust your ears Amir, have no fear. Your speakers measure just fine, don’t worry.
I am in no position to listen to your speakers. I like to see the measurements. Why are they not forthcoming? You understand that measurements provide incredible value beyond anything a listening test shows, yes?
Thanks to those in business who understand this and offer a helpful refund policy. Not everyone is going to like the sound of their designs.
The "sound" was the first thing that was sacrificed in your testing. I was once talking about to a rep for a product line. He told me he was the #1 salesman in selling CD players at the high-end store near us. I asked him how he did it. He said he would first play music on the cheap player. He would get the customer to like that. And then he would take him to show him the $4,000 player. He said all he had to do is push the eject button and watch the drawer come out with fluid motion and the sale was made!
So no it is not about sound. Folks are easy pray when they use their eyes to eat....
I am not reviewing your speakers. I want to see the measurements
You’ll be listening to them, same thing. You didn’t see measurements at Harman of the various speakers prior to listening on the shuffler. Trust your ears Amir, have no fear. Your speakers measure just fine, don’t worry.
My ears, my preference, is #1. Summary, what measured better did not sound better.
Incredible that people with eyes wide open continue to claim that they only used their ears. No matter how much you show them that such testing produces completely wrong results, they cant even be bothered to state what they really did. "My ears." No, it was not your ears. It was your ears, eyes and a brain that loves to please you by telling that higher priced items must sound better.
I know you disagree. To do so, you need to come back with an ears only test. Why is it so difficult to accept when all you talk about is "trust your ears?" How come you must see what you are testing? How come you don't realize that if levels are different, preference shifts just because of that?
Years back, when Halcro first came to market, one of their claims to fame was that they had amps that were exhibiting such amazing measurements that they were ground breaking. No other manufacturer could deliver a product with the type of measurements that these amps delivered. Problem was that as soon as any reviewer with half a decent ear listened to them, they were pretty much dismissed as not good sounding at all!( even though JA and others did measure them and were astounded by what they found, which conformed to Halcro's marketing). This ultimately hurt their sales, but i suspect they did sell a few to the ’objectivists’ out there....who then promptly tried to unload them onto the secondary market...with minimal success.
I wonder if all of the Halcro adherents would easily pick out their favorite amp in a ’blind test’...or whether they would all opt for a poor measuring single ended tube amp, and question whey their measurements were deceiving them??
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