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The Audio Science Review (ASR) approach to reviewing wines.

Imagine doing a wine review as follows - samples of wines are assessed by a reviewer who measures multiple variables including light transmission, specific gravity, residual sugar, salinity, boiling point etc.  These tests are repeated while playing test tones through the samples at different frequencies.

The results are compiled and the winner selected based on those measurements and the reviewer concludes that the other wines can't possibly be as good based on their measured results.  

At no point does the reviewer assess the bouquet of the wine nor taste it.  He relies on the science of measured results and not the decidedly unscientific subjective experience of smell and taste.

That is the ASR approach to audio - drinking Kool Aid, not wine.

toronto416
coralkong's avatar
coralkong
697 posts
 

As good an analogy as any, I guess.

I wrote off ASR long ago.....

Ag insider logo xs@2x
skucie
58 posts
 

dead on.

ghdprentice
7,337 posts
 

Exactly.

hilde45's avatar
hilde45
5,126 posts
 

Another ASR hating thread. One need not say that listening does not matter in order to see the value in measurements.

Are there ASR folks who think that only measurements matter? Sure. But that does not mean that the measurements done cannot be helpful at all. (I mean, I’m not a fanatic about my weight on a scale, but it helps to know when I’ve gained 10 pounds.)

I honestly don’t understand why ASR is like Voldemort to some folks here.

mulveling's avatar
mulveling
2,021 posts
 

Analogies of audio to other hobbies are generally suspect (especially the car ones), but yes I can sort of get on board with this one. The folks at ASR have a very different hobby than what is generally practiced here - though we’re superficially under the same title "pursuit high-quality home audio". Unfortunately that’s about all the discussion that can be had about the 2 camps before it goes way off rails.

I remember reading an ASR "review" that was chock full of the useless SINAD analysis, and then for the "subjective listening" portion something like this was written: "we had comany arrive at this time, so no listening tests were performed". That's their hobby, in a nutshell lol.

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