This is indeed a false dilemma. Telling me I like something because it measures well makes little sense...but telling me that measuring something has no place in a selection process is equally senseless. These are just data points.
On the OP's analogy, there is science and engineering behind 99% of product development and manufacturing these days. That includes wine.
My negative thoughts on ASR relate mostly to his lack of tact (see how nasty his debates got on the Roon forum) and how that fosters ASR culture, and the absolutely dogmatic nature of how they interpret the results relative to the probability that something will sound better to the majority. Because that’s really all it is...probability...because of the number of factors not considered (which would be impossible to consider given that many of the factors don’t exist in Amir’s lab...i.e. the listener and the listener’s room and other gear).
A few random observations about this debate:
- I suggest that assembling a good system is as much about the assembling as it in any individual piece of gear. The synergy is key...much of this is scientific/electrical in matching output/input properties and the like. Then there is the room and the source material. Some of these variables are impossible to keep constant. Probability, not certainty there.
- ASR mostly ignores the synergies and relationships. I imagine this makes more sense to headphone users where variables can be greatly reduced. My buddy who is an ASR cultist is a cans guy and his POV makes more sense in that context.
- ASR provides an invaluable service in debunking total snake oil, and there is a lot of it, especially now on the digital and network side. But their 150% dismissive attitude actually robs it of the credibility it otherwise deserves.
- That Panther junk is dumb...people should have to have listened to the gear to vote.
Thanks for an entertaining Saturday morning folks!
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I find ASR a refreshing, fact-based antidote to the florid nonsense hyperbole in traditional audio reviews.
Take Fremer who argued in a TT review in TAS last year that one arc second is audible with respect to wow&flutter. That is physics nonsense*. And the editor didn't catch that either. So I cancelled my TAS subscription again.
I also appreciate Amir's firm grasp of engineering, for instance that a USB reclocker is pointless (one of the latest videos). Plus emphasis of psychoacoustics, e.g. second one is better, as demonstrated by listening test of the USB reclocker, where it sounded better after the $4K reclocker was taken out. Plus the emphasis that objective testing of subjective listening test IS possible.
* for those who don't see it immediately, one arc second is an angular measurement, whereas speed stability if expressed as change of velocity over time (dv/dt). Even as a marine biologist I notice this. For fun, one can calculate the acceleration required to make audible changes in speed over 1 arc second, taking threshold of hearing for frequency (~2–3¢ on a good day) and time changes into account, and then it becomes even more ridiculous.
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“My biggest problem are the members who can ONLY see the audio world through their own narrow vision. Every time someone seeks advice, it's the same routine of "it doesn't matter," rather than having any REAL input/advice.
What I DO value it for is the measurements…”
@wtyamamoto - Well said. The enormous chasm between the ASR faithful on one side,
- i.e., routinely displayed disdain and skepticism for expensive gear and those who own expensive gear, intolerance and frequent pile-ons when something doesn’t measure as well as a Topping, Gustard, etc., and banishment of those with dissenting viewpoints,
and the listening-over-measurements crowd,
- i.e., everything can’t be measured, human hearing is more advanced than any current measurement equipment, the wrong things are being measured, science cannot explain everything in the wide universe, etc.
has created a sort of ASR Derangement Syndrome where the mere mention of ASR results in a basic war of words. It seems the delivery style by the ASR members and, in some cases Amir himself, could be a bit more insightful and understanding of other viewpoints, while the listen-only crowd might open their minds to the possibility that occasionally, certain sacred cows aren’t worth defending. There is probably room for compromise on both sides.
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I read ASR, but don't agree with the attitude that measurements are all you need. My biggest problem are the members who can ONLY see the audio world through their own narrow vision. Every time someone seeks advice, it's the same routine of "it doesn't matter," rather than having any REAL input/advice.
What I DO value it for is the measurements (sans "recommendations") because MANY internet reviews these days ONLY speak about sound with no hard measurements - the exact opposite - and where I do believe sound is the ultimate arbiter, I feel modern equipment should at least measure reasonably.
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If you ship a non-traditional item to ASR for review, no matter how good. Amir will absolutely destroy that product in his measurements. This I can guarantee you.
He absolutely obliterated, massacred the Chord Dave he reviewed. There is no shortage of great and beloved products that he had destroyed with his reviews. But strangely no products he endorsed are beloved.
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petaluman:
I am aware the small list of speakers I mentioned are "box" designs (stretching the definition for the Genelecs and the Dutch&Dutch) and am well aware of the several categories of speakers that are not of a box design. My comment was specific to Amir's own "reference" speaker--his Revels, and my general observation of the preferences of commenters on the ASR site appear to be. I do not believe I wrote anything to suggest I was unaware of the alternatives to box design speakers, planars, planar-hybrid, horn, horn-hybrid, open baffle, never mind the variants of box designs, transmission line, or for that matter transducer variations with ribbon tweeters, long-stroke woofers, field coil transducers, too many to list.The ASR site seems to sample whatever the readership sends for testing, and most appear to be monitor-size boxes, which is to be expected at those dominate the market. Occasionally a product from an audiophile brand is sent in only to be tested and found wanting, which then excites contentious responses.
I am sure if you were willing to ship Amir a pair of Magnepans for testing, he would oblige.
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While on the topic of the best measured dac ever. Benchmark designer made the Benchmark Dac 1 and for years he insisted it’s the best dac. It cannot be improved further.
But people did not like the Dac 1. Some years later, the Dac 2 was released.
Been there, done that. Had DAC3B. One of the least engaging DACs I’ve owned. My prior two dacs and subsequent two dacs after the Benchmark DAC3B all measured worse, and they all sounded more engaging, more fun to listen to. What’s being measured and what is being suppressed and filtered out does not always correlate for me in translation to good sound,
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ASR most praised products do not sound good.
I can tell you exactly why the Topping D90SE is a mediocre product. Clearly distinguishable in a blind test.
Keep in mind the D90SE is the best measurement DAC of all time. There’s a clear disconnect here.
While on the topic of the best measured dac ever. Benchmark designer made the Benchmark Dac 1 and for years he insisted it's the best dac. It cannot be improved further.
But people did not like the Dac 1. Some years later, the Dac 2 was released.
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I say what I said above because I see too many people equate
ASR = Data & Science & Facts.
Sinad and THD do not represent the entirety of science nor audio.
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@chenry
Thanks for your response, but I'm aware that he's using Spinorama. My question isn't HOW he produces the pretty pictures, it's how he decides what is important.
Forgive me if I'm incorrect in assuming your response is out of ignorance, but all of the speakers you listed are boxes. I'd say traditional, but Klipsch (horns, founded 1946), Magnepan (planars, original design 1969), and MartinLogan (electrostats, founded 1979) are all US companies with very high profiles in the audiophile community for 46-79 years, long enough to considered traditional in their own right.
There are also newer designs, many using the sort of drivers you would recognize, that are configured to produce dipolar or bipolar radiation patterns. There are even omnidirectional speakers on the market now. All of these designs have advantages & disadvantages, proponents & detractors, and will measure very different "on paper". It may well be that Amir avoids all of these issues by sticking to domes & cones in a box, though.
I did find a thread on ASR entitled "Dipole vs Box speakers" - 5 pages long, nothing from Amir, some skeptics, some converts. I'm not suggesting any one design concept is superior, but if this is all new to you, you might want to explore listening "out of the box". It could change your life (or at least, sound system)!
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Guys, I think we need to all take a step back and realize 1 EXTREMELY IMPORTANT DISTINCTION.
ASR DOES NOT represent nor speak for all of the audio science community.
ASR = ASR
ASR ≠ Measurement crowd
An extremely important distinction. There are many people, both enthusiasts, and electrical engineers that do not align with how ASR do things and how ASR conclude data.
You can still agree with science and measurement and still disagree with ASR. Sometimes we miss the too obvious.
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I am neither an ASR hater nor lover. I think that objective measurements have a place in reviewing stereo equipment. Certainly JA adds objective measurements to the subjective review. But I think that the OP's analogy is particularly apt in demonstrating the role that subjective listening plays in audio equipment. I know that I have never bought or not bought something based on measurements rather than listening. I would imagine that it is not uncommon for something to have crappy measurements and not sound particularly good either, but ultimately, it is how something sounds in your system, and not strictly objective measurements.
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@devinplombier
There were two occasions. They were both some time ago. One was a few years ago when I was looking at processors, and I wanted to check out strictly measurements, so I can’t remember which one. I remember they flubbed one crucial metric, and it changed the ranking of that particular processor.
I was floored, and I basically thought I can’t trust them for anything.
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Check out the photo of Amir's reference system. See any problems?
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Common sense science and real experience indicated that the ASR set of measures cannot describe the sound experience of speakers nor the subjectivist evaluation in a living room...
Common sense and acoustics science with experiments said so...
Objectivist are ideologue as prof just confirmed above and subjectivist are deluded in their own way...
Acoustics set of conditions and parameters rules...
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Oenology does exactly that. With the difference that oenologists mainly work in the audio… sorry wine industry. The person representing the audio reviewer, would be called a sommelier. The ASR bunch are certainly not in that business.
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I think the wine tasting analogy is a pretty good one. That said, how about the Absolute Sound Magazine approach which is essentially the opposite?
Steven Stone’s & a few others reviews of lesser expensive stuff are often very useful & compare the item being reviewed to other similar products which can offer a practical & helpful information to better understand the pro’s & cons of the equipment & how they might compare to what you own or are considering.
Most of the remainder of their reviews of many really amazing products are simply glorified, extended advertisements & offer very little objective evaluation. Take for example their recent review of the Thiele Zero Tracking Error Turntable. It’s probably a very fine sounding turntable but it’s never compared directly or even from memory to anything else in its price range. Additionally & maybe more importantly, it’s never discussed or even mentioned what would be the potential benefits of zero tracking error & or they were heard in listening to it. That would have been useful & informative.
At least Stereophile for the most part objectively tests stuff. It could be very useful to know if an amp, for example & generally a tubed one, puts out its rated power w/ less than a few % distortion if you’re considering buying it & sufficient power for your speakers is a question. Of course, the true test is listening to something in your system but that’s not always possible or practical.
Objective & subjective reviews & information are both useful & have their place.
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And here’s another big problem with their methodology…THEY HAVE GOTTEN THE MEASUREMENTS WRONG. I’ve personally seen it, and frankly , it was embarrassing. If that’s your ONLY acceptable criteria and you screw it up…well what good are ANY of your conclusions and how can you be trusted?
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petaluman:
Amir has explained his choice of speaker measurement, the Spinorama, because of its closeness to the measurement in an anechoic chamber. There are explanations giving details of the setup on the ASR site.
He has posted his main system. He has used Revel Salon-2 floorstanders in that system.
I don't often read the site. There seem to be many there who prefer KEF monitors, and a fair number who like powered monitors from Genelec, Neumann and Dutch & Dutch.
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@prof
To quote from my previous post - "the speaker design - box vs planars vs horns vs OB".
You'll have no problem in any gathering of audiophiles finding people who prefer Magnepans or Klipschorns or Linkwitz over box speakers. These speakers and many others differ in basic method of sound production, on- and off-axis frequency response, radiation patterns, impedance curves... All of them have their fans. They all differ quite noticeably in the way they sound. Any set of measurements that would match well with one of these designs would likely produce poor results with the others. Based on your argument, knowing Amir's specific measurement criteria should tell us what kind of speaker he prefers (subjectively). You can't simply average all the speakers together into a Frankenspeaker. So, has he ever divulged his reasoning for the measurements he makes and how he established their usefulness?
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@petaluman
What I meant there was that Amir Generally evaluates
Loudspeaker measurements based on the type of criteria derived from Blind loudspeaker testing, Which are known to predict high preference scores.
And other words that is there “ Best practises” Reference in terms of speaker performance.
If a speaker departs from this Amir Will try to Still describe the sound,
And depending on how things work out, he might still give a speaker a pass.
But as Somebody who likes subjective reviews myself, I agree with you that
Amir’s Subjective portion is a bit too paltry for my taste.
I was also referencing that Amir when evaluating electronics tends to do so by referencing distortion levels generally known through testing to be in audible or not.
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@rodman99999
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.
That’s simply false.
In many cases, we can absolutely know that there will be no audible difference made by some tweak, cable etc.
To think otherwise is basically scientific and engineering illiteracy.
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@samureyex
Your post is littered with a number of dubious, assumptions, or claims.
I was very careful in what I wrote.
As I said measurements are useful and so far as they have been correlated to their Sonic consequences. Sometimes this can be complex to predict. Sometimes not too complex to predict. If you take two loudspeakers that have a generally neutral frequency response, except that one has a 5db rise between 3 to 7K, you can bet that unless you have hearing damage, you are going to hear that as added brightness, exaggerated sibilance for female singers, etc. There are all sorts of subjective consequences that can be well predicted from measurements. If that were the case then people who work in sounds like myself couldn’t even manipulate sound with any predictive results using EQ.
Further, I don’t know if you are aware of the amount of research on listener preferences for loudspeakers. See the work of Floyd Toole and others.
In controlling for sighted biases - double blind testing of loudspeakers - certain speaker measurements are highly predictive of what the vast majority of people will identify as “ sounding best.” Neutral on axis response, low or in audible resonances, and well-controlled, even, slowly sloping off axis response.
So yes, there are measurements that highly correlate with what most people will rate as good sound, when other non-biases are controlled for.
Once you open it back up to sighted listening, things are less predictable, but in test where only the audio factors are decisive, measurements are very predictive.
Likewise, measurements can tell you whether you’re going to hear a difference or not. Human hearing and audio have been studied for over 100 years, and we really do have a grasp on lots of things in terms of what are audible or not.
There are thresholds of distortion below, which you simply will not hear any difference between a piece of gear, such as amplifiers.
That’s why nobody has been able to show they can tell the difference apart in blind tests, between amplifiers that measure with distortion below the known audible threshold.
Now a problem, of course is going to be the divide between the “ golden ear subjectivist” and those who recognize the relevance of measurements and science.
If you believe that the most reliable method of evaluating gear is your own subjective impressions, without any sort of controls for bias, then we are going to remain at impasse. You can always claim, or believe, that you hear certain things. That’s how human bias and imagination works.
And this is where we arrive at the common claim from audiophiles “ but what about all that gear that measures amazing but sounds bad? That proves that could measurements don’t tell us the real story!”
Such claims, unless you or anybody else has actually verified those situations where you are “ not peeking” (you don’t know which gear you’re listening to and that’s been carefully controlled for) , then this is just in the real realm of your own anecdotes, and not something that you can simply claim as the truth from which to argue from.
So when you say that the Topping DAC doesn’t sound good… I don’t see why I should take that as a fact establishing the matter. If it’s the best measuring deck, Amir has come across, it is not going to be producing any spurious audible distortion that would make it sound bad. And you are unlikely to be able to tell it apart from another DAC that would have similar levels of low distortion.
But again, this is where we reach the impasse. If you believe that, nothing continue that your ears have got it wrong, and you are not open to being wrong about that, there’s not much I can say.
Of course there certainly does remain areas where differences and how things measure will amount to audible differences, in which we can have different preferences. I’m a fan of tube amps and I find the audible distortion with my amplifiers sounds “ good.” Somebody else may prefer a solid state amplifier.
And yes, ultimately, audible differences will come down to different preferences.
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The fact that ASR has rankings for speakers is troublesome.
Some speakers are better at certain things. Bass, mids, vocals, treble clarity, separation, imaging, 3d holography.
Just shows these people only listen at numbers and graphs. It's fine, if you get pleasures from listening to graphs. The world still spins.
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If your scientific measurements are not reliable, then what are we even doing here?
Point at a random well measured speakers, the fact that no one can confidently say it will undeniably sound good by just looking at the data alone, that is troublesome.
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Here's how you know ASR is borderline useless. There'd be a new product, and the ASR people would dissect and read all the data, and then something magical happen.
They all wait for subjective user experience.
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@chenry
"the results are open for comment. NO! They are not open for comment. If your comment does not match their philosophy you are thrown off.
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@cleeds
Exactly - ASR is ridiculous biased - biased for Topping, biased against pricey equipment. I had two different Topping DACs - both were DOA so please measure that POS.
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Well I guess since Amir admits he listens to less than 50% of the products he reviews, those who believe a proper review can be conducted without listening, should be comfortable with ASR's methods. To me even the suggestion of a review based simply on measurements should cause even the faithful to run for the hills.
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the religious fervor of some at ASR
No such thing at Audiogon. Right?
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chenry
... What I think bothers readers here about ASR the most is their objective methods ...
There is nothing inherently objective about measurements and the ASR site is dripping with bias and disdain. I don’t take ASR seriously and I’m not fooled by the use of "science" in its name.
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This post gets at a real value for both A'gon and ASR -- objectivity:
Unlike other reviewer outlets, ASR isn't heavily supported by advertising like most of the audio print media. They have posted unfavorable reviews of generally successful if not popular products and have given good reviews for little known and inexpensive new products.
Avoiding marketing and forum hype is a good thing. ASR does it their way. Some do it on A'gon with their own experiences or counterarguments.
These two posts get at a problem with over-enthusiasm about "measurement" and the religious fervor of some at ASR:
I'm unhappy that they are most likely steering newer audiophiles down the measurement rabbit hole, when they don't even have a clue yet what type of speakers and equipment they personally enjoy.
The decades of going into audio stores in my region and listening to a wide array of systems is something I cherish to this day. Going to listen to other peoples systems, all great learning experiences.
Both comments point to the fact that an overweening reliance on measurement tends to keep people from experience as critical to learning to listen. Trusting one's ability to take time to listen, notice, feel, and connect with music is the key to good audio, and when rankings and measurements displace that, we bind ourselves to a technocracy that shoves experience (and value) aside. This doesn't mean that measurement cannot help experience, only that it needs to be watched as carefully as an open flame.
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People here get their pants in a bunch over ASR, its contributors and its methods. You would think they were doing something illicit. Their methods are explained and disclosed, their results are published, the results are open for comment. As that goes, there is nothing objectionable. I am not sure the ranking differences mean all than much as concerns SINAD numbers between closely-rated devices. Some of their speaker ratings, when done correctly, provide useful indicators as to which speakers can be expected to perform well in on and off-axis listening. They don't make useful comparisons of other features of a particular device aside from SINAD, Spinorama and frequency response. They do point out response irregularities and comment whether the deviations are likely to be audible. The commenters are a mix of thoughtful and knee-jerk, and you have to filter out the latter. I don't agree with the wine analogy in the OP, but if you were to extend the wine analysis to things like acidity, sugar content and tannins content you might have a better comparison. Unlike other reviewer outlets, ASR isn't heavily supported by advertising like most of the audio print media. They have posted unfavorable reviews of generally successful if not popular products and have given good reviews for little known and inexpensive new products. What I think bothers readers here about ASR the most is their objective methods and general lack of favoritism, which forces those who disagree into the inherently weak position of attacking their methods.
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@devinplombier "Then folks wonder why younger people are flocking to ASR"
Ya know, you bring up a very valid point. The decades of going into audio stores in my region and listening to a wide array of systems is something I cherish to this day. Going to listen to other peoples systems, all great learning experiences. Most of this is gone any more - so, how do younger people learn and decide, today.
It’s easy to see why they are in search of data to try and make more informed decisions -vs- sifting through forums, or watching reviewers with opinions pedaling gear, then trying to figure out who to trust and follow about their hopeful audio purchase. And then, any remaining local dealers sell what they sell too. I guess all of us need to be mindful about what we post, and who’s reading.
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This is the problem. Some of the brands, notably Topping, do not sound that good and have had quality problems. Yet say something negative about this holy grail and the whole of ASR comes down on you like a ton of bricks.
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I think it has more to do with reinforcing what some hope to be true.
Exposing the virtues of a $ 1000 USB cable isnt the same as making a person feeling foolish for not buying one.
On a personal note, my brother an engineer, bought both Topping mono amps and the $ 350.00 Topping DAC and sent both back within the return period. The DAC fared better than the amps, but neither were very good.
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they are most likely steering newer audiophiles down the measurement rabbit hole, when they don’t even have a clue yet what type of speakers and equipment they personally enjoy.
True, but... on ASR, a good DAC costs $200 whereas on Audiogon you might be made to feel like an ignorant peasant if you haven’t "invested" $1000 in a USB cable.
Then folks wonder why younger people are flocking to ASR
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@hilde45 valid point. Measurements are for showing what's measured (duh). This can be invaluable when trying to match equipment to the room. But yes, at the end of the day, our ears have to like the results. I'm happy ASR exists for the purpose of looking at the objective measurements. I'm unhappy that they are most likely steering newer audiophiles down the measurement rabbit hole, when they don't even have a clue yet what type of speakers and equipment they personally enjoy.
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ASRs whole approach of anything that measures bad sounds bad, and the inability to describe how things sound or what people prefer sometimes - is a nonstarter for me. It all comes back to what people hear and what they enjoy most, and no metric tells us this very well.
Agreed. The point is not that "we should adopt the ASR Method." but rather we should avoid a false dilemma fallacy. Which both sides commit.
Measurements have their place. The measurements aren’t the problem with ASR. the problem is the mob of people that pounce anyone that says "hey this is better even though it measures poorer"....The sad thing is, the "happy panther" scale always rewards the highest measuring equipment because of the horde of stat hunters that are ready to say it’s better without hearing any of it.
My point is that people just being "against ASR and FOR listening" are throwing out some valuable data. I already made this point at length so I’m going to stop after this.
I'll add one more point -- people who focus on "how gear sounds rather than measures" frequently do not mention the rather complex effects of (a) other gear, (b) the recording, (c) the ROOM, and (d) their methods for listening. There is a very bad pseudo-science air in these conversations where it is supposed that the writer is conveying something that others would experience, but without any of the critical variables to help others know whether the claim would be something they can experience. How often do we hear "these speakers sound bright" and then we ask for a photo and find out they are listening with a bank of windows or a tile floor? It's this kind of thing that drives people to measurements even though those can be misleading or besides the point, too, but in a different way.
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@jrareform
The measurements aren't the problem with ASR. the problem is the mob of people that pounce anyone that says "hey this is better even though it measures poorer"
Exactly.
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@hilde45
I had a long and bitter debate with Ethan Winer about this. My position is that there may be things heard which cannot be measured because the brain and perception are way WAY beyond our understanding at this point in our scientific understanding. His reply to that was, essentially, "No, it’s just placebo effect and subjective bias." (In other words, y’all are just in denial.)
I recall there was a really enjoyable exchange between Jay Luong of Audio Bacon and Ethan Winer in the comments on one of his reviews; probably the power cable one.
Summary off the top of my head is: Ethan said what you stated above, Jay imagined all of it, no proof etc. and also Jay had no scientific background. Jay responded he was an electrical engineer, Ethan said he must not be a very good one if he believed there were differences in power cables, Jay said he received a Bill Gates scholarship, so yeah he probably was a pretty good electrical engineer. Ethan did not have much to say after that. Quite comical.
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Give me measurements or give me chaos!🤲
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@prof
Sorry, not calling you out on this, but you said "ASR evaluates equipment based on objective criteria that has been found to predict certain aspects of sound quality".
I was hoping that you could point to a link/post/discussion on ASR covering how the reader would correlate measurement anomalies directly with SQ issues? This is 1 of the 2 big holes I find in reading ASR reviews, so hopefully it's covered somewhere on the site, in depth.
For example, in a Stereophile-style review, the listener might say something like "trumpet was a little spitty in its high register". In the measurements section, that might be correlated with a slight rise in the on- or off-axis response. In ASR, the measurements go first, so you get the same data. In the listening section, though, you might see that Amir tried EQ'ing out the slight rise and liked or didn't care for the result. No indication of how the listener would perceive the original issue.
The other big hole is imaging, which is ignored in the monaural listening test. This has 2 parts - the first, alluded to above - due to the loss of the stereo image with only 1 speaker in play.
There's also the speaker design - box vs planars vs horns vs OB, etc. Each of these have significantly different radiating patterns. Their optimum measurement results should also be radically different.
How is any of this information being conveyed to the reader?
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The folks on this site seems to give too much importance to ASR. Time to move on.
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I cannot understand subjectivist audiophiles or objectivists either...
Acoustics measures by ears and tools matter first and last even over the pieces of gear design because any piece of well done designed gear is replaceable, The room and ears are not.
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ASR Review:
Over the years, I've read a small handful of ASR speaker reviews. I've noted the following characteristics:
1. The primary focus of all the reviews were the measurement results
2. In spite of that, the essential imperfection of speakers means that the interpretation of these results is subjective.
3. Any listening impressions were brief and at the end of the review.
4. All were based on hooking up 1 speaker only. I believe he only listens on-axis.
5. He may (perhaps always) apply EQ to the input signal and A/B the results.
6. The room (and likely, the equipment) used in testing is at his convenience. For example, large speakers are tested in a sub-optimal room, rather than his listening room.
7. In the few reviews I've read, the listening tests were used to confirm the measurement results.
8. I've not made an effort to see how non "domes & cones" speakers fare in his testing.
Conclusions:
It does appear that Amir is aware of and somewhat sensitive to the concerns regarding his review methodology. If you value stereo imaging, his listening tests will probably be singularly unpersuasive. I haven't (and probably won't) read enough of his speaker reviews to know if his measurement & listening results ever differ.
The testing methodology ASR utilizes is efficient, which enables them to review equipment much more quickly. However, the knowledge gained is also limited by the process. The results are thus most useful for the least discriminating.
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