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.
In my discussion with students for 40 years i discovered that lesser mind are unable to distinguish and separate the meaningful and meaningless aspects between two quarrelling side using historical and epistemological CONTEXTS to go on a subtle deeper and longer road OVER the two partial sides...
The great American polymath scientist, chemist, mathematician and logician and probably the greateast american philosopher, founder of pragmatism , Charles Sanders Peirce, say that Hell is binary and Heaven ternary; he founded alone modern semiotics with this joke about graphs and trees ... 😊
i am misunderstood completely by the two of you ..Sorry,...
I never called all ASR members zealots... Dr Choueri and Toole discussed there among others respectable people...I even invited people here to go and read there interesting discussions .. VERIFY...
i called zealots on ASR techno SOME babbling people, SOME techno objectivist groupies, because there is some as there is also insulting idiots here, I see some zealots attacking an experienced designer on ASR because of their ignorant zeal they ACCUSED him of designing "distortion" full product to "golden ears"...Incredible arrogance and ignorance together...They are zealots there as there exist idiots here ...
I called "idiots" those who insulted Amir here REMEMBER ? They even invited me to shut down my discussion ...
Read my posts...
i submitted more than 12 articles by 4 physicists and one geologist... And one acoustician...
I debated Amir with very precise argument from the 3 articles by MaGNASCO and Oppenheim because my main argument was there...No answer from him about this article save a remark disparaging his content as a mere secondary uninteresting or meaningless acuity test ... VERIFY...
I THANKS Amir 16 or 17 times for his set of measures as more than welcome ..Some idiots dont liked that at all...
I did not accepted though his claim about predicting ANYTHING about audible qualities from a finite set of measures on the gear ... ( his concept of "transparency" testing and his transparency concept apply to software file not to acoustic listening experience with all interfering aspects from the recording to the room acoustic )
Confusing the lenght of my posts and my clumsiness in english syntax with my alleged ZEAL, when i was winning with deep argument over some zealots of ASR or some idiots here insulting Amir, calling me a zealot is PREPOSTEROUS:
I will repeat my criticism from the first post i put here on this thread till today
The audio market condioned people to buy gear and focus on gear component, they sell them by the specs they bragged for or by the "musicality" they bragged for, Anyway the division between "subjectivist" and "objectivist" has his roots there in this PAVLOVIAN CONDITIONINGof the attention ON THE GEAR PIECE...
The main and real focus in audio, the attention , the scientific aspect of audio must be centered on ACOUSTIC AND PSYCHO-ACOUSTIC science , there is no objectivist and no subjectivist in psycho-acoustic methods...There they take the HEARING SUBJECTIVITY SERIOUSLY , they studied it experimentaly to understand this deep mystery, they dont eliminate subjectivity systematically by blind test and they dont negate his power as delusions or artefacts or illusions even if there is for sure...In the opposite they used subjectivity power and they even proved it to exist..
There is no gear objectivist in psycho-acoustic because they MEASURE all aspect on the controlled environment and all aspects of hearing to understand and APPLIED it to new design or to help with hearing impairments in natural environment experiments..
Then i am not a zealot , a zealot means someone pertaining to an ideology, objectivist measuring ideology or subjectivist listening "naieveté"; my focus is in acoustic training and psycho-acoustic learning...
Then i dont like to be called "zealot" by mistake or misunderstanding...
Call my posts too long and bad written , this is a FACT... but try yourself in a better english to convey all these complexities and answers in short posts of a few line... It is IMPOSSIBLE...
So much frothing and veins popping out on foreheads! Mahgister, you win the prize my friend! Your outpourings are truly epic and everything I have come to expect from the golden-ear brigade. And you call an ASR member a zealot?
Lots of stones thrown in glasshouses all around.
calling a ASR member zealot is just plain stupid and counterproductive. They actually have their beliefs anchored to something, a foundation, vs no anchor at all of the “it is all in the ears” people, which isn’t even remotely factual. It is all in your brain, not your ears. But hey, facts never stopped the anti ASR crew before!
calling a ASR member zealot is just plain stupid and counterproductive. They actually have their beliefs anchored to something, a foundation, vs no anchor at all of the “it is all in the ears” people, which isn’t even remotely factual. It is all in your brain, not your ears. But hey, facts never stopped the anti ASR crew before!
He says I am unable to tell such files apart and by implication, he can. Can he AJ?
I'm saying you can't tell them apart without the cheating you've both admitted to and denied simultaneously. The latter, about the now measurements guru/former Microsoft exec Amir being unable to measure the difference between bit depth/noise floor/etc.of computer files, even manipulated, is comical.
I don't care what Kevn believes, you are the one posting the gamed Foobar ABX files as retroactive bragging rights after the AVS debacle above.
This is exactly the type of test I'm proposing for PAF 24, that you take and demonstrate ability to detect difference between 16/44 and Hi rez...but without any of your analyzer gear around and being proctored/overseen for the first time, i.e. not allowed to crank silence etc methods of cheating.
I already know you are going to use the Salons are too heavy excuse, so which Revels are suffice vs a garage speaker? I have Revels too.
Yes of course his acolytes will head in sand defend the emperor, ignoring all facts like he both knows what he’s testing, has the knowledge and means to measure/analyze the difference in signals with the equipment he is pictured with, has confessed to having cheated by cranking low level/silence, etc, etc, etc.
Never mind the long history of fabricating tests aka the AVS link.
All that it to be ignored, in the name of science, you know.
Wanna bet he can’t repeat the feat proctored and unable to cheat, like at PAF 24?
So much frothing and veins popping out on foreheads! Mahgister, you win the prize my friend! Your outpourings are truly epic and everything I have come to expect from the golden-ear brigade. And you call an ASR member a zealot? Take a look in the mirror! The only reason to remove this thread would be because it's hacking over so much diatribe that's gone on between the objective and subjective side of audio reproduction on HiFi systems ad nauseum for decades. The fact is that you are either using your equipment to listen to music or using music to listen to your equipment. Personally I'm from the former camp. I enjoy music and have listened to it on a range of gear from very expensive to downright poverty spec and do you know what? Every time I listen to something I like, it's still the thing I like. It's not a live performance and no conventionally produced recording can match that. The reason it can't match it is the amount of processes the recording passes through on its way to being a finished product. Subsequently, its a moot point as to what combination of expensive audio gear can come the closest to reproducing a live performance, none of it can. I recently started a discussion about speakers on ASR and my assertion was that the search for the "perfect" speaker was a pointless exercise. To back this up, I illustrated the broad range of speaker designs and design philosophy, not to mention materials and electronics. There is such variety in this technology that to declare one the "best" in not practical or honest. As many have pointed out here, it comes down to your personal experience and what you think is best, nobody else's . Personally, I'm really happy with the Q Audio speakers I just picked up for $275 and the little Class D Bluetooth amp I hooked up to them mainly because I just want a nice, room filling sound, not loud not impressive, just nice to listen to music with. I did some research, mainly on the speakers and for the money, they looked ideal for my purposes. The amp, well I just followed the latest chip tech and tried not to buy an amp with something obsolete inside it. I used a cut up shaver cord for speaker cables and paired the rig to my phone to listen to my Spotify playlists. That's it, nice, simple, cheap, sounds good, no distortion (that I can perceive) and now I have the music I like in my living room. Happy.
Yeah I’m in the camp now of leaving it up. Amir wants this to be deleted. He spammed this thread and now is praising the moderators. Hey @amir_asryou still haven’t answered why you used to not level match!
A short dialogue from ASR... ( a cartoonish dialogue, a fiction not too much far from reality )
« ASR zealot : I dont know about the cymbal decay time and the brush rustle sound time envelope , i must use my tools to analyse the recording ...
---why dont you use your ears?
ASR zealot : i have nobody to supervise the blind test in a correct way... As you know the ears are dubious...
----How do you know if your analysis will reveal less about your audio system and more about the recording itself and what about if your system is not in a good room or if your system is not really so good ?
Are your tools able to gave you everything about all factors of transparency : the recording trade off ? the audio system parts ? the audio system synergy ? the audio system with no acoustic optimization ? or the same audio system in a well controlled acoustic room ?
you never use your ears first to differentiate all these factors?
ASR zealot : No need, a well behaved component measured for his linear behaviour is all there is to know... Hearing delude us in a way an oscilloscope cannot. i always listen to confirm my oscilloscope lecture.. My acuity is so good that i am always synchonized with it...
----I understand, but if the cymbal decay is not good , perhaps it is a bad file, or a bad recording technic which was used, or perhaps a bad component, or perhaps a bad synergy between them , or perhaps a bad room ? And perhaps your ears defect ?
ASR zealot : no problem i dont use my ears much because of their biases anyway...But i pass very hard to pass acuity test with success..
----And you will write a review with this recording anyway only if you are able to measure the amplifier or the speakers and use blind test with a few reviewers, is this so ?
ASR zealot : yes...
--- But suppose the recording engineer was not so good especially for the cymbal part even if the measured speakers or the measured amplifiers are measured as good with a linear behaviour what about the recording engineer fault for the cause of the lack in transparency...
ASR zealot : you dont understand the method... All audible qualities are illusory or subjective anyway, even transparency... What matter is the OBJECTIVE blind test results for our readers and the measured specs of the amplifier ...
--- Then you will go on with the amplifier review ?
ASR zealot : yes... transparency of the amplifier will be measured... not the recording technique..And the amplifier will be objectively measured and confirmed by blind test
---- Then the choice of the recording and of the room did not matter at the end ?
Asr zealot : what matter is objective measuring science... Room acoustic is a market superstition... Well measured speakers dont need a room, they will do well in any room ..
---- If even transparency is subjective as the end result , the only real objective factor is measuring tool ?
ASR zealot : yes...our role is to explain to each consumers they cannot trust any non verified by us gear component, they cannot trust their ears either...The measures is the objective level of transparency...
--- you are then the only hope to tame the audio jungle market ?
ASR zealot: this is why we exist... Law and order...
--- But psycho-acoustic experiment just demonstrated that the Fourier linear time independant mapping based models of hearing is wrong , the way our ears/brain work had no direct relation with our tools ?
ASR zealot : it is the reverse ,the experiment demonstrated that our ears cannot be trusted, i precisely stated to you that our ears cannot be trusted , even mine with top tested acuity, and this experiment by Oppenheim and Magnasco confirm it completely... The tool behave well linearly in a predictive way, the ears dont work in this way..
Only our set of linear tools verify each market component and can say something objective about sound quality... the ears works as a pair of uncontrolled horses ... our tools are the necessary blinders to tame and trained them in the right direction ... Our ears work bad non linearly as a bad impredictable circuit and dont obey science, mathematic is time independant unlike our poor hearing.. Psycho-acoustic study hearing only to replace it by A. I. which will be an improvement ...You dont seems to understand science ? You are a philosopher no ?
one thing is sure for me, even if Amir is more a market seller than a scientist, he is a gentleman... then we must condemn hateful posts...
As i said many times i welcome his measures... Not the zealots around him parotting his dogma for the worst...
I invite everyone to read Toole discussion and Dr Choueri discussion on ASR...
There is no competition between ASR and audiogon... To much different sites...
@texbychoicejust read @kevn musings and I think you are right. Very well said. I have learned from @mahgistertoo, so I agree it would be a pity to close this. People needs to see who Amir is warts and all, and it certainly helped me identify my own biases.
@kevn you really write well and I love your meditation on audio
The problem is that some called "distortion" a bad name something that is used to ease the Ears/brain working when listening music... second and third hamonics are not distortion in a negative sense it is a positive tool based in acoustic...
Some designer use them for long time ago... In S. S. or tube amplification...
Distortion must be CONTROLLED not always eliminated or masked...
but i am not an electronic engineer ... I will shut myself here...
As said Amir i am a philosopher... 😊 It is not false... Even if for him it is almost an insult... For me it is not at all... 😁😊😎
I learned that some people think distortion is overrated.
@texbychoicejust read @kevn musings and I think you are right. Very well said. I have learned from @mahgistertoo, so I agree it would be a pity to close this. People needs to see who Amir is warts and all, and it certainly helped me identify my own biases.
@kevn you really write well and I love your meditation on audio
Closing this thread is an error... this thread can inform everybody about his marketing ways.....
It is the only place where Amir debated with evident sign of ignorance because challenged seriously , ignorance about psycho-acoustic and ignorance of any solid arguments ... He drown the fish with his tools analysis reviews one after the other as ARGUMENTS... Subjectivity must be eliminated by blind test and never used in the design process... It is the opposite of craftmanship design based on psycho-acoustic ...
Anybody can read the arguments and see there is no serious understanding of psycho-acoustic behind Amir defense of his small set of tools... The measure he takes are useful to know but cannot predict audible musical qualities from the gear... The gear must be paired synergetically in an acoustic room and reviewed by experienced listeners and the designers himself...
Agree it is time to close this thread. Although, it does demonstrate a crystal clear difference between Audiogon and ASR. ASR would never have allowed a similar exchange.
A parting suggestion before this thread might disappear. Go back and carefully read recent posts from @kevn. Very thoughtful, reasoned and accurate analysis.
I am astounded by the amount of prof take as good arguments...
Hearing theories and their link to the design practice ... No value for prof... Amir did not even adress that he called that "philosophy" when i spoke about it and when Van Maanen write about it he called that, leaflet of marketing with no value ...He does not even try to understand the content... Everybody can look for himself with the link above......
The difference between abstracts Fourier map of frequencies, amplitude and phase and duration compared to concrete subjective ears/brain evaluation in the time domain and non linearly extracted from natural sound sources... No value for prof parotting Amir here ...
The fact that it is psycho-acoustic research now that drive audio industry no more the basic traditional gear design from edison to the first tube amp and the first S.S. amplifier and the first modern microphones in the boom after the war , because the industry being mature now, the great innovation comes from dac psycho-acoustic technology improving and mature now, but also from the like of Choueri virtual room acoustic , using positively and not eliminating as Amir do the subjective ears/brain specificities ( HTRF measures and specific inner ears comb filters measures to increase the musical experience by the fine tuning of his BACCH filters application for each subjective listener using his subjective characteristic com-pletelt instead of rejecting them )
Choueri did the exact opposite of Amir, to increase the experience he used and measure each specific aspects of subject hearing DIFFERENT abilities and his room too and speakers... Amir reject all subjective ears/brain aspects as mere illusions or artefacts . he promoted only a small set of electrical measure as REAL FACTOR of sound qualities, except some room measures but he does not advise for small room acoustic (sic)... Is it not incredible ? All that has No value as argument for prof parotting Amir here...
The fact that even hearing impairment studies need experiments in a natural environment not just in a laboratory with Fourier maps around what is called ECOLOGICAL HEARING THEORY , this is no value for prof parotting Amir...
The fact that serious designer even here in Audiogon , not just Van Maanen, use harmonics ( distortion positive control) to ease the way the ears/brain perceive sound qualities , it is of no value for prof parotting Amir whose circle of zealots purist ignorant called that MARKETING for audiophiles (idiots) .. Incredible arrogance and educated stupidity...
The fact that any trained classical musician or acoustician , or mature lover of music as i am one, can judge an audio system by analysing rise and decay of piano notes , the rise and decay of cymbals ( a perfect SIGN for analysing the way the audio system work in time control because the concentric decay of a strucked cymbals increasing as a slow circle before vanishing is better than a Fourier map analysis and way more shorter to analyse ) the bass evaluation with turkish drum or gong , and the organ bassier note rendition , the rise of the higher note of the violin and his decay time etc, all that are IMMEDIATELY revelatory of an audio design better than few electrical measures from the linear Fourier window of a circuit behaviour, but it is of no value for Prof parotting Amir...
it is incredible the knowledge of prof and Amir...they are able to predict everything about audio qualities with few set of electrical measures... Indeed it is exactly what Amir sell to gullible consumers.. His method as catechism...
They know something , and they know better than me on many audio points for sure, but their misunderstanding of the BASIC psycho-acoustic theory and applications is stunning...
They really think that techno cultism is science and replace concrete listening experience and the only possible experiment is with the few tools of Amir...
Amir bragged about predicting cymbal harmonious decay or the timbre of a violin by measuring an amplifier and connecting it with speakers in a room with no acoustic...No doubt any acoustician can go to sleep now and any recording engineer too, any classical or jazz musicians, they dont know what transparency is, Amir know with his electrical tools...
i am astounded and dumbfounded... i had been unable to discuss anything here anybody can verify that Amir produce no argument against my essential point NONE ... Oppenheim and Magnasco experiment no value for prof at all, parotting Amir...
And prof say naively that he is even attacked on ASR by defending something about the hearing subjectivity...Incredible... imagine a naive designer audiophile how it will be treated ? i know because i read many pages of dialogue between an expert designer and some Amir groupies... this designer is more a saint that i am for sure...
it seems we can have a diploma at low price now...
In my time 1963, i studied latin and old greek english too ( but i did not pass my graduation in english 😊 and i struggle with Latin theme writing ) we learned anyway how to read any text and commented it at 13 years old... now it seems that education dont exist. only SPECIALIZATION with empty programmable students....
i say all that because i am stunned by this level of ignorance... i am not an engineer in audio ... And i am able to win easily an argument, so much high is the level of ignorance in techno cultism ...
Agree it is time to close this thread. Although, it does demonstrate a crystal clear difference between Audiogon and ASR. ASR would never have allowed a similar exchange.
A parting suggestion before this thread might disappear. Go back and carefully read recent posts from @kevn. Very thoughtful, reasoned and accurate analysis.
Ok small set of electrical measure of dac amp and speakers overcome psycho-acoustic facts about the limits of electrical measures and hearing theory facts about the ears/brain ...
As I have repeated explained, speakers have been tested using countless controlled listening tests. Measurements were then made that correlate with the preferences of those listeners. Whatever listening abilities those humans had, came into account in this research. You said you read Dr. Toole's book so you should know all of this.
With other gear, when we test humans, they routinely can't replicate their sighted claims of fidelity in blind tests. Therefore, there is little that is real that needs to be investigated. If anything, I am your champion as evidenced by me showing that small impairments can be heard. You need to come to my defense when I post such data, not continue to complain. :)
I did.Massively so. We helped him create his channel by giving him access to huge number of visitors. I even helped him get his Klippel system up and running and calibrate his measurements against a speaker I had tested. Once he got rolling this is how he finished his reviews:
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If you like what you see here and want to help me keep it going, please consider donating via the PayPal Contribute button located below. Donations help me pay for new items to test, hardware, miscellaneous items and costs of the site’s server space and bandwidth. All of which I otherwise pay out of pocket. So, if you can help chip in afew bucks, know that it is very much appreciated. https://www.erinsaudiocorner.com/contribute
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A single post like that will get you banned on any forum, audio or otherwise. It didn't on ASR but we did warn him repeatedly that he should not do this. But he continued in various ways to pull traffic from us his site/channel with advertising, etc.
Eventually this came to a head, and he was banned. Alas, after he got his painful divorce, I unbanned him and he remains so as I type this. Members constantly link to and post his reviews/website. There is no more "courtesy" to be had to offer him.
There are no parallels between the above and my posting here. I am not creating new threads and posting links and pleading with money as Erin was doing. The membership here decided to create a thread specifically discussing ASR. Accusations are made against me/ASR which are disputed with factual quoting from ASR. Links to ASR are not commercialized with sponsored links, advertising, etc.
Knock on wood, ASR is larger than audiogon unlike the hugely reversed situation with Erin. So while he badly needed us to get started and collect money, we are in no such situation.
Should said banning and deletion of this thread occur, let me express my extreme gratitude to the moderators/site owners for allowing me to comment this far. For this, I will forever be grateful. They have gone above and beyond in making this forum hospitable for me despite like above.
Can the moderator please close this thread or ban Amir or preferably both. Amir is using this thread to direct traffic to and advertise his site, things for which he has thrown off others from his own site. I am tired of his arrogance, insults and rudeness.
Should said banning and deletion of this thread occur, let me express my extreme gratitude to the moderators/site owners for allowing me to comment this far. For this, I will forever be grateful. They have gone above and beyond in making this forum hospitable for me despite like above.
Can the moderator please close this thread or ban Amir or preferably both. Amir is using this thread to direct traffic to and advertise his site, things for which he has thrown off others from his own site. I am tired of his arrogance, insults and rudeness.
So I'm just wondering if you would hazard a guess as to how well measurements will determine how the different audio product categories will actually sound to people. How much they like them.
No need to guess. I can fully predict what they will like in blind testing given the measurements and my knowledge of audio engineering and science. With their eyes wide open, anything goes but in general, the more expensive, the fancier and the more talked about the gear, they more they will like it.
I did not level match anything. However, once I found one source was worse than the other, I would then turn up the volume to counter any effect there. Indeed, doing so would close the gap some but it never changed the outcome. Note that the elevated level clearly made that source sound louder than the other. So the advantage was put on the losing side.
About the listening test believe it or not, I didnt cherry pick. I am actually looking at the smaller bookshelf 3 way design TAD and so I searched. Interested I read the review. I did no hunting. Now I have done hunting and it does seem to be more the exception to the rule. However a lot of the listening tests seem rushed or like an afterthought. This is why I like Erin's Audio Corner. His subjective listening is first. What he thought about it. Then the objective comes into play. It's unique because he gives the conclusion first.
"That is a comment I made in passing which is being misunderstood by you and even some reviewers (Darko comes to mind). The point I was making that in some cases like speakers and especially headphones, correlation of measurements with listening preference while strong, is not conclusive."
Yeah that's what I was talking about. I don't misunderstand you. You admit that measurements can't reliably tell what sounds good. More so with speakers and headphones and less with cables and DACs.
So I'm just wondering if you would hazard a guess as to how well measurements will determine how the different audio product categories will actually sound to people. How much they like them.
I pointed out a review where he didnt do a listening test on a $20,000 speaker, which at the beginning of this whole forum chat he said he does for every speaker because listening tests matter. For that TAD speaker, he said he didnt have time. Which is it? You cant have it both ways.
So you can find one review in which Amir didn’t have time to listen...and just ignore the reams of reviews in which he listens?
That sounds like more of a hunting-and-pecking agenda on your part, than any deep inconsistency on Amir’s part.
I haven’t seen the other exchange you mentioned. I’m not aware of Amir saying level matching wasn’t important, for rigorous listening tests.
You are an Amir apologist.
Sticks and stones .... :-)....I don’t really care what you call me, I’m just interested in the quality of arguments here. He’s more right, more often, than other people in the thread from what I can see, and he’s generally not saying things I disagree with. When I see that happen...I speak up, which I did. I don’t honestly care what ratio I need in order to pass whatever purity test you might have in mind.
I fully support your challenging Amir, but if there was something major in which you had prevailed in the debate, I seem to have missed it.
Ironically, I’m quite sure I pollute Amir’s forum with more purely subjective stuff, and defenses of subjective descriptions and reviews, than anyone else there, to the chagrin of some members. If you ever looked at a lot of my posts on ASR you will see me constantly sticking up for these things, against all sorts of criticism.
@prof No he doesnt have to admit wrongdoing, but he never is wrong. I have yet to see it. His record is unmatched in that regard. See the above. He cherry picks things to support his agenda, and then doesnt acknowledge the subjective side. I pointed out a review where he didnt do a listening test on a $20,000 speaker, which at the beginning of this whole forum chat he said he does for every speaker because listening tests matter. For that TAD speaker, he said he didnt have time. Which is it? You cant have it both ways. He might be doing well in some respects, but answering that, and why oh why he previously said he doesnt level match but now is religious about it, is suspect. See how he didnt respond to my questions? instead he responded to someone else's. He wont and then I will have to ask again. That is what we call gaslighting. He then can say LOOK, this guy is being rude and unkind repeatedly harassing poor Amir. NO! He is not being transparent.
He routinely kicks people off of ASR like Erin from Erin's Audio Corner, who I have not seen do anything worth being kicked off for. That is subjectivity. Why not let the people figure out what angle is better. By the way Erin has the same measurement tool and is after objective results. You would think Amir would want to combine forces. No his ego gets in the way.
You are an Amir apologist. You say you arent but then all I see you do is defend him, except for that 1/100 moment you showed me a while back.
Ok small set of electrical measure of dac amp and speakers overcome psycho-acoustic facts about the limits of electrical measures and hearing theory facts about the ears/brain ...
Amir was not able to contradict even one point of my discourse about magnasco and Oppenheim experiment... You dont read it prof ?
You are a great scientist prof no doubt... 😊
I’m not saying Amir is perfect or some objective Deity. I’m just observing the quality of the arguments here, and Amir is providing the higher quality arguments thus far.
Don’t change a thing a Amir! I got back into audio as a hobby for years ago and could not believe the things that I saw. $4000 audio cables crazy magic rocks, little dots that you stick to your wall.
Thank you for the kind words. It means a lot to me. And yes, the dots from synergistic "research" are up there. One of the devices supposedly radiates things in the air that makes the sound better. They have a remote for it. He will only do forward switching. Ask him to go back and you get non answers.
I must say though, Ted puts together one of the best sounding systems at these audio shows. I covered their room back in 2017 Axpona:
I enjoy visiting his suite to discover reference tracks and enjoy some good tunes.
I think that is when I found this lovely track by Willie Nelson and Johny Cash:
Amir continually points out why everyone else is wrong, but him.
So you need Amir to admit he's wrong in order to accept his arguments? How many people in this thread have admitted to being wrong? He's either right or wrong, based on his arguments. It's possible everyone else is wrong. I mean, a geologist could show up in a flat earth forum and, yes, he'd be right and everyone else would be wrong. So that's neither here nor there, in principle. So you can't just complain about that, you have to anty up and make your own case against his.
it has been him telling everyone why they are wrong while avoiding any hard hitting questions.
I disagree. Far from "ignoring" hard hitting questions, he's done a pretty amazing job of answering people, and providing much more substantiation for his claims in his answers than anyone else in the thread.
I'm not saying Amir is perfect or some objective Deity. I'm just observing the quality of the arguments here, and Amir is providing the higher quality arguments thus far.
@prof I don’t think I saw anyone say Amir was the only rude one. Amir continually points out why everyone else is wrong, but him. How is that possible? It’s not. From the first comment he made on this thread, it has been him telling everyone why they are wrong while avoiding any hard hitting questions. He then spams links to his website, and promotes himself all the while saying no forum allows that which is why he has to ban other people on his website who do what he does and shuts down threads. He then claims that this is because they are on YouTube and it needs to stay on Youtube. BS. He doesnt like the competition.
@soundfield pointed to two old posts Amir made one was about how he didnt level match here is the quote
I did not level match anything. However, once I found one source was worse than the other, I would then turn up the volume to counter any effect there. Indeed, doing so would close the gap some but it never changed the outcome. Note that the elevated level clearly made that source sound louder than the other. So the advantage was put on the losing side.
And the other was from his own companies website where he promotes at the time $50,000 per pair amplifiers which he still uses in his system. You can see it in the picture he posted in this very discussion.
He has not reviewed the very amp that is in his reference system as far as I can tell. He has not addressed any of the above. Why the change of heart? He claims to be this objective evangelist, but you dont get to claim that while ignoring a different story of the past.
The lack of accountability on his part is remarkable. I don’t run a website promoting data and objectivity when he consistently avoids the harder hitting questions and denies any other people of his ilk to talk about their methods on his website. Erin was banned.
@amir_asrHow do you promote rigorous ABX testing when you admit you did not do that in the past? How do you not have numbers up for your current amp?
We all thank Amir for his measures verifying market sellers specs...
We dont buy the procustean testing by blind test and rejection of subjectivity as the basis of audio...
I prefer to train in acoustic my subjective ears/brain filters instead of calling them myself "delusions"... It would be like calling his wife a necessary hardship...
Amir pass acuity test and he is proud, i tuned my room and i am proud... 😊 Guess which is the more useful and gratifying test?
Objectivist and subjectivist focus on GEAR... Not on acoustic and psycho-acoustic and that is the reason why they quarrel... We need our ears even more than the welcome measures of Amir... But Amir dont like it...
I tuned my room and he called me "deluded" for doing so...Because i dont measured all the process and publish it... Imagine the job ? it take me one year non stop to tune it by ears , imagine that i would have computed all , the only way to do it with 100 helmholtz resonators would have been to measure not only my room but my ears HRTF and inner ears canal ... i never intended to tune my room by ears ...I did it each day with each day small task, as an incremental play and learn...Not as a doctorate in acoustic of small room .. There is not many books about that, because there is no man with enough time to do it... Pro acoustician will design a dedicated room esthetically but think about 100,000 bucks... it is easier to kept all in the living room.. i could not... My wife love silence only... 😊 It was my luck too... i quit the living room...
I will never had the obligation to do it again to this extent, i will buy one day Choueri BACCH filters for my tremendous headphone ... But i am very lucky to had no money at the times , i learned a lot in the process without that i would have never catch immediately Amir fallacy about subjectivity and hearing theory... ...
Among all subjective qualities perceived the more objective one is transparency ...
Transparency in the audiophile vocabulary does not have the same definition than for a software engineer though...
---For an audiophile transparency means that the audio system let the acoustic trade-off choices of the recording engineer to be heard optimally as they were intended..
How do you know what they intended? You don't even know who that is, or what they heard or experienced. So any argument on that basis is moot.
The only thing you have in your hand is the recording. That is our "big bang." Everything past that is unseeable. Such is the world of audio without standards.
Fortunately, when put in a controlled test where only the ear is involved, most of us agree on what good sound is when listening to a number of speakers. We compare them to each other and realize which one sounds more "real" to us, even though we have no real concept of well, real.
So even in something as fuzzy as speakers and human perception, we have a way to select equipment that is performant based on real research. You know, the type that actually tests to see what speaker we like, not what a research paper says when testing humans with special tones.
The only rational strategy is to build a neutral system that can be provably so. Then modify it to tase using equalization. It is not complicated. You want to please your ears? Do it right.
Sticking wood blocks under your speaker cables won't do it. Thinking a power condition lowers the noise floor when it doesn't, won't do it. Thinking a more expensive DAC sounds great while a cheap one being "crap" won't do it. None of this is based on realties of engineering that goes into operation of your audio gear.
Don’t change a thing a Amir! I got back into audio as a hobby for years ago and could not believe the things that I saw. $4000 audio cables crazy magic rocks, little dots that you stick to your wall. I thought the world of gone nuts. I seriously asked myself did I miss something in science class that this stuff actually works? Should I go with the bass who buys this stuff? Are they smarter than I am or are people really buying this stuff? It just makes me shake my head. You’re trying to help people see the forest through the trees and all they can do is be disrespectful . or angry at you because they probably have spent a bunch of money on stuff that they thought made a difference and found out that it probably didn’t and in the end they got taken advantage of. So you shoot the messenger. You’re not supposed to though… please keep up the good work! I spend a lot of money on this hobby and I feel a lot better doing it after I check your website first. Thank you Amer thank you!
What is the impact of a photon of light when you hear an informative qualities perceived from two singers whose tone interact ?
None i know of...
That's right. Sometimes the simple is the answer. We don't need to dabble in philosophy or obscurity to analyze performance of something as simple as a DAC, audio cable or amplifier.
You asked questions about the papers you presented. I answered them simply and clearly together with proper back up. You keep saying I didn't and go on posting about philosophers. No one is engaging you on the topic from your camp because stuff you are writing don't make sense or are relevant.
Instead of writing more, come back with the results of any controlled listening tests you have run that disagrees with measurements and are basis of your theories. That is all that matters, right? The sound we hear.
A Simple answer is not a SIMPLISTIC answer...
I never "dabble in philosophy" ... Remember Magnasco and Oppenheim are PHYSICISTS... They work this experiment in psycho-acoustic... But there is consequence for the philosophy of acoustic science : ears/brain is not a Fourier computer.... This sentence which present essential aspect of this article is not PHILOSOPHY but had philosophical consequences yes for hearing theories... Do you catch the nuance ?
Now i will present the Amir fallacy...
After that i will give an exemple in audio engineering with a physicist who work in plasma physics and acoustic ( as Van Maanen was a physicist in fluid mechanic and acoustic, you qualify his article about "Often disregarded Conditions for the correct Application of Fourier Theory" as a leaflet sellers with NO SHAME...)
Amir fallacy :
Among all subjective qualities perceived the more objective one is transparency ...
Transparency in the audiophile vocabulary does not have the same definition than for a software engineer though...
---For an audiophile transparency means that the audio system let the acoustic trade-off choices of the recording engineer to be heard optimally as they were intended..
Transparency, like sound or video quality, is subjective. It depends most on the listener's familiarity with digital artifacts, their awareness that artifacts may in fact be present, and to a lesser extent, the compression method, bit rate used, input characteristics, and the listening/viewing conditions and equipment. Despite this, sometimes general consensus is formed for what compression options "should" provide transparent results for most people on most equipment. Due to the subjectivity and the changing nature of compression, recording, and playback technology, such opinions should be considered only as rough estimates rather than established fact.
Judging transparency can be difficult, due to observer bias, in which subjective like/dislike of a certain compression methodology emotionally influences their judgment. This bias is commonly referred to as placebo, although this use is slightly different from the medical use of the term.
To scientifically prove that a compression method is not transparent, double-blind tests may be useful. The ABX method is normally used, with a null hypothesis that the samples tested are the same and with an alternative hypothesis that the samples are in fact different.
Anybody here reading this wikipedia definition of "transparency" will recognize our Software engineer Amir...Now keep in mind that the audiophile definition of transparency and the definition coming from the software engineering meet somewhere but are very DIFFERENT...I will explain why they meet and why they differ...
Now the Amir fallacy:
All perceived audio qualities by a listener for Amir if not subjective illusions or artefacts are SUBORDINATED to the transparency in the sense of the psycho-acoustic of data compression engineering...
And this software concept itself serve and meet the audiophile definition of transparency, the audiophile transparency here being the optimal translation of the recording engineer trade-off choices through the audio system/room for some specific ears/brain...
The Amir fallacy is transposing this software definition of transparency in the verification by a small set of electrical measures in electric design measured component and disregarding the audiophile definition of transparency as secondary instead of being primary why ? Because it subordinate the subject experience to the material design and to the software concept of transparency...
First the audiophile definition refer to the trade-off specific choices of the recording engineers which must be translated by the specfic audio system...The audio system for exemple the amplifier, class A, class A+B,classD, tubes amplifiers, S.S. amplifiers etc all these design are different variaion types and all are designed with trade-off choices which will deliver different QUALITATIVE perceptions... The vocabulary of audiophiles, very subjectively describe these sets of trade off choices in design and in the recording engineers choices ( timbre imaging soundstage holography immersiveness etc)They PERCEIVE these trade-off and qualify them for them..
THe Amir fallacy is eliminating all relation between trade-off choices at the recording level and resulting also from the design qualities to reduce all of them to his own concocted notion of transparency as for a circuits, for components able to not interfer but translate and convey the "transparency" of the digital files...it is a software engineer prejudice established as a DOGMA by eliminating all perceptible subjective qualities are pure illusion or indesirable artefacts...Amir called this "transparency"... it is not audiophile transparency not the recording engineer relative "transparency" born from his trade off choices either, but an other concept of transparency born in the software design and applied to circuits and components..
i already explained how psycho-acoustic demonstrated that the ears/brain dont work as a Fourier computer but non linearly and in his time domain...( Magnasco and Oppenheim article )
The Amir fallacy is the act of throwing under the rug all Qualitative perception as subjective then useless if not measurable by the set of Amir Fourier tools and mapping...
But these qualitative perceptions by a subject are the ESSENCE OF AUDIO...Not the electrical measures assuring us that a circuit behave well or give a low noise floor or a good ratio signal/noise ...
One of the greatest revolution in audiophile experience is the virtual room system of dr. Choueri the famous BACCH filters...
What did Choueri did to implement these filters correctly ?
He measured , not only an amplifier, or a dac, or speakers specs ONLY and MAINLY but way more, he measured the specific HRTF the head related transfert function of the specific listener , he measured the ear canals with a tiny in ear microphone to create a cross talk cancellation filter forc this SPECIFIC EARS , he measured acoustic information about the SPECIFIC listener room ... Now you begin to understand that this specific subjectivity and ears/brain perceptive physiology of EACH listener ,being always different from each person is the BASIS of this experience of TRANSPARENCY in the audiophile meaning of the word and not at all in the software engineer inspired meaning of the word transparency...
What is the difference between the Dr. Choueri concept of transparency and the recording engineer concept of transparency ?
in the two case there is trade-off , these trade-off are the basis of PERCEIVED TRANSPARENCY... Choueri use our subjectivity associated to our different HTRF and different inner ears filters to achieve transparency in audio experience... Choueri dont negate the value of the listener subjectivity , in the opposite he used it in his design... As Van Maanen used the non linear working of the ears/brain and the time dependant dimension of this working as a rule to guide him in the designing trading choices of his amplifier...
The Amir fallacy is the reduction of subjectivity and specific qualities of the listener to be useless, illusory and something to eliminate by blind test and isolate to reduce all concept of transparency to the software engineer concept...a pure mathematical equation with no relation with physical acoustic and the psycho-acoustic of the human ears/brain... he based all his reviews on a small set of measures in a Fourier window...The non linear working of the brain in the time dependant domain which is crucial matter and positive basis for the design of Van Maanen and Choueri is for him only an IMPEDIMENT to put aside...Audiophile definition of transparency is illusory because audiophiles had PREFERENCES , and audiophiles favor this trade-off over this other trade-off etc... All this must be standardized and all listeners put on the Procustean bed of blind test to cure him from his BIASES, trained ears of musician or acoustician this does not matter, they are all deluded subject who must be REEDUCATED by Amir small linear set of measures in the Fourier window... The ears /brain dont work as a Fourier conmputer but Amir dont give a damn... Only him know what is transparency and what it is not... Vinyl lovers for example are deluded... Tube amplifier lovers are deluded... Many designers will never dare to say what they think about Amir fallacy, they want to sell and not create enmity... But any designer is an artist creating his own trade-off set of choices , inspired by psycho-acoustic non linear working of the ears/brain and the relation between tone and harmonics and how to use them for a better "transparency" trade-off choice...Amir fallacy is reducing anything to his definition of transparency... All the others are deluded..
As i said we thank Amir for his measures verification... it is useful... But his reductionist conception of electrical measures as the basis of the experience of transparency inherited from software engineering, not from physical acoustic and the psycho-acoustic of sound perception is a techno-ideology with no relation with the real psycho-acoustic trade off from the recording engineers to the designer of audio components and to the listener trade off set of choices in his body and room...
Amir is not the Pope of audio...only someone who discovered a way to market his site through a specific technological ideology ( software engineering ) not science ... If anybody read the concept of transparency in wikipedia he will recognize Amir...
The Amir fallacy is throwing the baby ( subjective listening psych-acoustic experience value) with the polluted waters ( linear signal noise ratio measured as bad or not optimal in components etc ) The Amir fallacy resulted from the confusion of hearing theory with an electrical set of measures then the erasure of hearing theory from the audio equation...Dr. Choueri and Van Maanen made the exact opposite choices for their design, they subordinate their material design to hearing theory and to the subjective specificity of the human ears/brain because their goal is not debunking audio components and audiophiles but creating higher optimal design for subjective experience ...
You know some nuance, grey area and a little humility that maybe all these measurements are limited in what they can say about how a product will sound.
Do you want me to lie to as you buy humility? Fact is that my instrumentation and suite of measurements are at levels way beyond human ability. The right criticism is that we find problems that are not audible to people. To which I say fine. If you are going to buy something though, and I find a product that is cheaper while being more performant, why not consider that?
What I am not going to do is to tell people, 'everything we know about audio engineering combined with measurements show this device to be transparent to the source. But.... if you want to think it still "has a sound," you go right ahead.' That makes no sense. You don't want me the one to be misleading you. Heaven knows the industry is doing that en masse.
By now it should be clear that pleasing a few people who keep complaining and complaining is not a goal. If folks want to get bent out of shape over my testing, so be it. They need to think though why, without exception, the people who send me such gear are happier to know the information, than not. This is the power of what we are doing at ASR. The yearn for knowledge is that strong among huge swath of audiophiles we serve.
@amir_asr You are way off base here. I do want independent evaluation. I want scientific research. I want to enjoy audio. I’m not subjectivity or objectively preferential. They both influence the other. Go back to pro audio. They all want a speaker that measures flat. They all want less distortion. More clarity. All of the things you tout as the holy grail. Yet, and yet, they find some speakers to be more pleasing to them. Some monitors are better at showing them the mix. Some want passive. Others lean toward active designs. If your reviews were the end all be all of objectivity then producers would pick all of your best recommendations. But they don’t. Neumann is liked, so is genelec. What speaker do I hear more than any other constantly touted as the best? atc. I’m going to wade into the data and guess they wouldn’t measure as well but people prefer using them.
You don’t get it. I was a huge fan and supporter of yours. I talked to you on several occasions. I even was considering donating to your “cause”. Not now. You are rude, you belittle people and think your opinion is better. Your are everything you described in that last paragraph and can’t see it. I’m not dogmatic. I start with every audio component with an open mind and eliminate or buy it if it fits in my system. I am human as are you I think. And you want to strip psychology out of something that is dependent on it. Your brain is the first and only tool you use to evaluate everything. And it’s misguiding you. You can’t see the forest.
I’ve been practicing what you yourself preach for longer than you have. I bought into the ruler flat fr of most pro gear before it was what it is now, because if the producers use it then I want to hear how it was intended to be heard. But you can’t eliminate the last 25% of the equation which is entirely subjective. You think you can but you aren’t a robot.
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