Nearly all manufacturers do not advertise/exhibit their product measurements? Why?

@fleschler 

Amir is so full of it... I tried six digital cables and they all sounded very different. Not just to me, but to five other listeners, two golden ear friends. My wife who is not an audiophile but has a very keen sense of sound gave me her comments.

People who believe in the results of everything from homeopathy, to new age healing crystals, to...name your unscientific belief...give anecdotes just like yours for their beliefs.

Some people just don't know what they don't know, and refuse to learn...and that's how we get a world suffuse with wild belief systems.

Again, as you can see if you read Amir carefully, while he has a good technical basis for being skeptical of some of the claims being made here, the door is not completely shut on any of your claims, or anyone else's.  It's just that he's looking for better, stronger evidence than yet another audiophile saying "My friends and I heard a difference!"  And quite rightly so!  Everything from green pens on CDs, little brass bowls placed on walls, stickers and pebbles placed on components, have had such testimony!

Until you grasp the relevance of listener bias and it's influence on our perception, your continued use of anecdotes to support technically dubious claims will continue to miss the point.

@jerryg123

Now what I do know about you is you have never posted your system or listening room.

I seem to remember you posting on the very thread in which Amir’s system, with measurements, was indeed posted.

Here is is again:

You won’t visit ASR to gain accurate information about the person you are speaking about...yet you will nonetheless tell people about Amir’s credentials?

I’m afraid your posts against Amir seem full of sound and fury, and little else.

My "anecdotes" are based on my hearing abilities.

You continually ignore that you are not superhuman, and that your "hearing abilities" are fallible. You really can imagine hearing differences. You really, really can!

No amount of "expertise" can get around these biases. It’s why scientists themselves - those MOST in a position to be aware of their biases - use methods to counteract the influence of their biases.

I’ve dismissed most tweaks I’ve tried or heard/experienced because of the lack of significant differences or no differences heard. All your above named audio tweaks I’ve dismissed after trying them (green pens) or hearing them elsewhere, in and out of a room/system.

Then what about all the audiophiles who claimed the DID hear differences with those tweaks that you have "tested and dismissed?" Are they right that they work, or are you right that they don’t work? What do have to offer beyond a form of he-said/she-said approach to these problems?

I have repeatedly stated that everyone has their own listening bias. This does not negate relevant claims of differences heard.

Yes, as you have seen I have argued that here and on ASR. The fact that there is some noise in the system - listening bias - does not mean our perception is entirely unreliable.

HOWEVER, when you want to be REALLY SURE your conclusion is true or well justified, THEN it makes sense to account for the variable of human error in your method! And even more: the more a claim edges in to the "extraordinary" category: that is the more that it would seem at odds with what relevant experts in engineering or the relevant science understand to be unlikely, it makes sense to be MORE cautious about how you are drawing your conclusions.

That’s why the claim someone added more salt to their recipe changes the flavour doesn’t immediately demand rigorous evidence, but if they say they’ve built a perpetual motion maching in their backyard..sorry...a group of guys saying "It’s true, I seen it with my own eyes" will hardly do. It’s going to have to pass much more rigorous lines of evidence. The people who are IGNORANT of the relevant physics and THINK they saw a perpetual motion machine really DON’T have just as much of worth to say about the claim as relevant experts, even if they don’t have a grasp of their own ignorance on the subject.

This is what Amir has to deal with all the time. Most audiophiles are simply not very technically informed, and can’t really evaluate the plausibility of the technical claims made by high end audio companies. So what they have just their "experience listening" which has the problem of perceptual bias. And if they think they hear a difference, well that’s enough to show the claims made for the product are true!

This really is a problem of people who just don’t know what they don’t know. Many audiophiles just aren't in a position to understand when a claim made for a product is bullsh*t or very dubious.   And until some level of intellectual humility arrives, as in "hmm, maybe I shouldn’t be as confident as I am, and maybe someone with expertise does have something to teach me..." then this cycle will never be broken, and the expert will be cast as the dogmatist or ignorant.

And so it goes...

@jerryg123 

Ok, so I am wrong that you ever participated in, or read the other recent threads on ASR?  (In which Amir appeared, and in which his system was posted)?

Please be clear on that if I was wrong.

In either case, you were the one who wrote:

Now what I do know about you is you have never posted your system or listening room.

So if you had not participated in or seen the other ASR threads, how can you tell anyone that you KNOW Amir has never posted his system?

Best to pick a story to stick to :-)

@jerryg123 

Figured.

People here are smarter than you think ;-)

Well @jerryg123

Let’s sum things up.

You claimed to Amir:

Now what I do know about you is you have never posted your system or listening room.

I then suggested you had been on the very threads in which Amir’s system had been posted.

Your reply, instead of admitting the truth, was to claim my memory was failing.

So let’s see who is telling the truth.

Here is the previous thread on ASR to which I was referring:

As anyone can see for himself, you are posting throughout that thread! Yes, the one I said I thought you’d posted in.

In fact, in that very thread YOU once again untruthfullly claimed ASR was only about "Kmart" gear, AMIR did post a link to his system info upon request, right here:

AMIR wrote:

"As to my system, you can see a brief overview and pictures in this review thread: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/review-and-measurements-of-lyngdorf-roomperfect-eq.6799/

So not only were you lying by implying my memory was wrong, and lying that you "know" Amir has never posted his system or listening room, even Amir’s system itself shows you were making bogus claims that it’s all about "Kmart" gear on ASR.

I don’t really know what people get out of trolling...I’ve never really understood the urge to troll...but if you are comfortable being continuously caught out fibbing in public...you do you I guess. People can see what’s what. ;-)

@prof You are such an expert in your opinion denying the plausibility that I hear great differences and can make an informed opinion of my own.

No, precisely the opposite. I recognize my limitations as NOT being an expert.

That’s why I value explanations by actual experts.

My whole approach starts from my (and humans in general) fallibility.

This seems hard to grasp for people who have trouble accepting their own experiences may be fallible.

When I say there is a very significant difference, THERE IS!!!!!

That is the confidence one sees from religious dogmatists. "I experienced it; nobody can tell me otherwise." By valuing your subjective opinion above any other evidence, you have made your belief unfalsifiable - no outside evidence to the contrary can budge you. I personally, along with plenty of others, prefer not to treat audio as if it were like religion.

So to provide a contrast: I really seem to perceive "obvious" differences when I’ve done some tube rolling. I’m fine to proceed on my experience. But I recognize I’m quite fallible and like anyone prone to listening biases. Therefore I would not simply declare "If I say there is an obvious difference THERE IS." I can acknowledge the point made by a skeptic that it could be some type of expectation effect or perceptual bias, rather than the sound changing audibly. I’m willing to be wrong, and it does not threaten my self-worth to admit my perception may be in error.

So, I guess that’s how we see things differently.

Blind ABX testing on these tweaks and I bet I couldn’t identify the differences. Change from six Pangea power cables to six Grover Huffman power cables in a high end/high cost system-OBVIOUSLY SUPERIOR!!!!!

So...do you mean you have reliably identified these power cables under blind test conditions?

@fleschler

Are you deaf (or rather taste depleted that you can’t tell salt from sugar)?

I believe you have lobbed that insult more than once.

Can you tell me specifically what I wrote that leads you to think I have poor hearing?

My discernment for characteristics in sound, both large and minute, is routinely put under scrutiny for my job. I make a living with my hearing. I can't just brag about my hearing on an internet board.   If my hearing sucks, I lose my job.  How about you?

I’ve also put my hearing under rigorous tests where I don’t get to "peek" and ACTUALLY use ONLY my hearing to see what I can tell apart. That is: blind tests.

How often have you truly tested your hearing - your hearing ONLY! - rather than when you know what you are listening to? If you continue to brag about how you can tell things apart in "sighted" tests where you know different gear is being switched, that’s about as "impressive" as saying you can tell me what number the dice will roll...but only if you first get to look at the result after the roll.

@fleschler 

My hearing is fine.

Ok, so that makes two of us.

Sighted tests are verboten? They can only be guesses and wrong. Like rolling dice? Must have measurements! Must be ABX blind testing! Sounds as ridiculous as it is.

So you have never truly put ONLY your hearing to the test where you can't cheat. 

Ok.  (except, apparently, via an audiogram. And it's funny you'd accept those results, which are a blind test, but refuse to accept the validity of blind testing components for what you can *really* hear or not).

If you ever do so you may find it enlightening.  As I've said, between us it seems my approach shows the greater humility.

But it's clear by now we can't seem to communicate about this issue.

We'll talk gear elsewhere.  Cheers.

I don't use this term lightly because it's often tossed around too recklessly.

But jerryg123 is clearly trolling.   Again...what people get out of being trolls is beyond me, it's a very odd way to spend one's time, but...almost every forum is infected at one point or another by people who spend their time that way.

I suppose at least it has afforded an opportunity for Amir to re-iterate some of his credentials for others who may be interested, but clearly you-know-who is not here for actual civil conversation.

Now that you listed your creds I feel even better we are beating you at the

system/FR measurement throw down-

Audiogon Forum 1- ASR 0

You can have a rematch anytime, with those creds you should do much better in the rematch, just answer the bell this time and post your system pics, components, and FR graph in your profile.

Otherwise that really long post of your impressive creds= just more hot air.

Yeesh.  This stuff is getting pretty childish.

Good sign this thread is in a death spiral. 

Time to abandon. 

See y'all....

I do NOT refuse to accept the validity of blind testing equipment, cables or tweaks. 

That's good.

However, I am unable to do blind testing.  So, I rely on my hearing. 

Ok, that's fine.  As I've argued, most of us don't have the time or set up or inclination to do blind testing.  Buy what you want, for whatever reason.

But it gives me plenty of reason to maintain skepticism if you happen to make claims for hearing things that are technically improbable.  My skepticism shouldn't stop you from buying whatever you want of course...but if for instance you said an expensive digital cable made Big Differences in your system vs a functioning cheap digital cable, I'm quite aware it is likely sighted bias at work, unless it could be shown you or someone else could reliably identify these changes "without peeking." ;-)

Not too bad in my opinion.  I also listen to my friends who have superior acoustic listening/interpretation ability.  They pinpoint problems, one who has Asperger and audio sound is his superiority in life.  His hearing is like a computer.  I don't inform my two Golden Ear friends what I have done/doing.  They tell me what they are hearing and often, what corrections should be made.  Try topping that with Blind Testing by the usual crowd of audiophiles.  They have really taught me to hear/listen better.  My wife is so used to decades of my cable testing  for the manufacturer that she automatically is skeptical of the sound whether it meets with her approval or something less.  She said I have trained her to hear sound as well as music.  Before me, she was fine listening to a boombox and car radio.  

And the point that you don't want to acknowledge is that literally nothing you described in that paragraph protects you or anyone you mentioned from regular old perceptual biases in which you can hear things that aren't there.

Maybe that sounds dismissive to you.  But think of what your position will be when I might say "I don't hear a difference" with some gear change that you believe sounds different.  Your response will be dismissive of my hearing (or gear, or whatever), it won't act as any evidence against what you firmly believe because, as you've said, if you believe you heard it, it's true.

And, once again, I tend to buy gear essentially the same way you do, by listening to it, so we are not that far off as audiophiles.  I just try to maintain epistemic humility in the face of our perceptual fallibility, and acknowledge I could be wrong.