Interesting ASR review of small GR Research speaker kit


I bounce between various kinds of analysis — more subjective listening reports, more quantitative measurement analyses and, my favorite, those that combine both strategies to tell a useful story about audio products.

Amir of ASR has just done a very powerful takedown of a fairly inexpensive kit being sold by Danny at GR Research. Not only does he prove his point about the speakers, he also makes (to my mind) a very convincing case that Danny put his finger on the scale in how he reported his own measurements. 

I'm not in any camp — Danny's or Amir's or anyone else's. What I appreciate is thoroughness and meticulousness in exposition. Danny does that in his own videos. (Again -- to me. I'm really still learning and cannot easily spot gaps in argument in this subject matter.)

I know people with some of GR's best kits — and I've heard one of them. They sounded incredible. I've watched a bunch of Danny's videos where he criticizes other companies; I've come away thinking, "Wow, he really revealed some of the grift embedded in that product." 

But here, the tables are turned, it seems, on Danny. I hope he responds, both to defend his reputation and methods, but also because it will set in relief where some of the distance may be between these two dominant online figures' methods in assessing what makes for a good speaker.

https://youtu.be/IikqAg38FPs

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Showing 4 responses by laoman

Seriously, does anyone really care what ASR says? They are a bunch of clowns and rude as well.

Thyname: "What has worked for me over the years: take exactly opposite of what AmirM says." I totally agree.

lanx003 "

"Attack to Amir’s comments and disrespect got to end here, folks."

And why is that? Is it because you have misinterpreted what GR has said? Anyone who rates and reviews equipment without listening to it is a complete waste of space and deserves to be ignored. Anyone who claims all Dacs sound the same and R2R Dacs are outdated technology is a fool. Likewise anyone who dismisses  any criticism of a certain Chinese Dac as ridiculous has ears of tin and knows not of what they speak.

" the fundamental point was that the performance was poor relative to other DACs costing less." and what did it sound like?

There is a very interesting thread on ASR at the moment where consumers who purchased a Topping PA5 are finding that 30% of them fail very quickly. The minion master recommended this product and now neither he nor the manufacturer have the courage to face the unhappy purchasers. The silence is deafening.