Why HiFi Gear Measurements Are Misleading (yes ASR talking to you…)


About 25 years ago I was inside a large room with an A-frame ceiling and large skylights, during the Perseid Meteor Shower that happens every August. This one time was like no other, for two reasons: 1) There were large, red, fragmenting streaks multiple times a minute with illuminated smoke trails, and 2) I could hear them.

Yes, each meteor produced a sizzling sound, like the sound of a frying pan.

Amazed, I Googled this phenomena and found that many people reported hearing this same sizzling sound associated with meteors streaking across the sky. In response, scientists and astrophysicists said it was all in our heads. That, it was totally impossible. Why? Because of the distance between the meteor and the observer. Physics does not allow sound to travel fast enough to hear the sound at the same time that the meteor streaks across the sky. Case closed.

ASR would have agreed with this sound reasoning based in elementary science.

Fast forward a few decades. The scientists were wrong. Turns out, the sound was caused by radiation emitted by the meteors, traveling at the speed of light, and interacting with metallic objects near the observer, even if the observer is indoors. Producing a sizzling sound. This was actually recorded audibly by researchers along with the recording of the radiation. You can look this up easily and listen to the recordings.

Takeaway - trust your senses! Science doesn’t always measure the right things, in the right ways, to fully explain what we are sensing. Therefore your sensory input comes first. You can try to figure out the science later.

I’m not trying to start an argument or make people upset. Just sharing an experience that reinforces my personal way of thinking. Others of course are free to trust the science over their senses. I know this bothers some but I really couldn’t be bothered by that. The folks at ASR are smart people too.

nyev

I don't know what ASR is, but the only way to ensure someone isn't being influenced by price, size, brand name, etc is to perform blind testing. Otherwise it's 100% opinion and you know what they say about those...

 

@jasonbourne52

re: quad 405 vs tubes.  It isn't that simple.  The 405 is well known as a "soft" sounding amp (extremes somewhat rolled off).

Two amps with different topologies may sound the same, but it is silly to infer that therefore ALL amps sound the same.  Ridiculous really...

 

@hilde45 wrote, "Skeptics like to call "placebo" on people who hear things, but not everyone who hears something is delusional."

Indeed, which is why double or even triple blind tests are necessary. Then you have the issue of just because you CAN hear a difference between say two cables, or whatever, which one is "best" depends on your own personal perceptions, tastes, expectations, and likes. Measurements won’t show you what is "best".

The problem with ASR is that there are a limited number of electrical parameters that can be measured with their equipment. I read one review of a $900 DAC where he admits he is more or less measuring the limits of what his test gear CAN show (measuring the noise in his own test equipment). By that admission I guess any DAC costing more than that is superfluous, right?

The thing is, no good manufacturer I know of ever designs gear by a spec sheet alone, tests it to see if it meets specs, and sends it out the door without listening to it first or at least a representative sample.

Just because there are somethings that can be measured doesn’t mean it gives us the entire picture, otherwise there probably wouldn’t be any "audiophile quality" gear in production.

It’s kind of like having only a colorimeter and judging a car by how close to "cherry red" the paint finish is when there’s an orange Maserati MC20 waiting to be tested.

Decades ago Peter Walker of Quad did a listening test of two amps

I have to completely agree with you here. Science and mankind have not made any progress since then. You should be given the Nobel award for this find.